Hi, doll.
Today is Winter Solstice, the longest night pierced by the brightest light. Truly, this is the most magical day of the year, for to find our way through this looming darkness we must summon and share extraordinary magic. Miracles, in fact.
I’m talking about the radical faith that creates something from nothing. Matter from energy. An immaculate birth. Oil that burns for eight days.
Really, I’m taking about a sacred gateway, and it’s paved with the faith that even the worst chaos is part of the divine mystery.
The faith that there’s more light than we can see.
Here, at one of the hardest crossroads in human history, we are in dire need of such faith. This is how we illuminate a future that is brighter than our present.
I was raised in an interfaith household in which my Jewish father and Episcopalian mother bitterly resisted each other’s holiday traditions. But neither my fraught memories nor the crassest commercialism can mar the holiday season for me—the candles in the night, the cheer in the cold, the colors blazing long after summer’s bloom.
Every night I admire the creativity of my finely feathered city—the fabulous displays and productions—and every morning I wake smiling about the messy ways we’re showing our love.
I adore anything that transcends the call of duty, and that’s exactly what this season inspires us to do. The holiday miracles hatched by human industry and generosity awe me every year. Receptivity and proactivity are one as we joyfully decorate the void.
Even better is the week between December 25 and January 1, when the beautiful stillness really begins.
Officially it’s a week of revelry, of endless parties and indulgence. But with so many people on break, linear time feels wonderfully suspended.
It’s a grace period known as “kairos,” or soul time, and this year it’s enhanced by Mercury Retrograde, which pretty much forces us to unplug. (It ends January 1, but go slow until January 4. Retrogrades tend to hit us on their way out.)
We can read books or lounge by fires or have long chats or stare out windows and just think. We can do nothing and feel everything. We can tune into something deeper and older and finer than everyday life.
It reminds me of my favorite Annie Dillard quote. “We awake, if we awake at all, to mystery.”
In these last days of December, I would never dare to add tasks to your to-do list. But keep in mind that this long, long night of winter solstice is ideal for bidding farewell to everything keeping you in the dark.
Ask how can you ready yourself to shine as the days lengthen again. What can you release? How can you spread more light in this struggling, suffering world?
Then sit or walk quietly so the answers can find their way home. Look, listen, and bask in this extraordinary love.
When you’re done, light a candle for everything you wish to make brighter. And remember: From now on, there’s a little more light every day.
Holiday Schedule and Gift Offerings
As we wrap presents as well as this year, I thank you for trusting me with your unique paths in one-on-one sessions and our shared path in this newsletter.
In gratitude for your presence, I’m offering holiday reading packages for yourself or a loved one. In these packages of discounted intuitive readings and guidance sessions, we commit to developing rituals, insight, and tools that align you with an optimal path over the course of 2024. Individual sessions also are available as gifts for your loved ones.
Purchasing these packages and sessions is as easy as filling out this form, and I’ll announce all gifts in a specially tailored message on the date of your choice.
Discounted Ruby Report annual subscriptions are available until January 1. In the weeks to come, paid subscribers will receive a Spotify playlist, reading and viewing recommendations for the post-holiday doldrums, and my top-ten films and TV shows of 2023, not to mention a list of the most egregious stinkers.
My schedule will be closed December 24-31, but I am giving new-year readings on January 1. It’s a powerful time to reorient your unique magic.
I send light for your night, and sparkles just because.
With waggling eyebrows and slow kitty blinks,
Merry Holidays to you and thank you!
For those who received this newsletter by email, I'm laughing that it got Mercury Retrograded in the first section. "Brighter" deserves to be spelled correctly!