Soyal Ceremony: honoring the winter solstice year after year

The Soyal Ceremony is a Hopi celebration of the winter solstice, a symbol of rebirth, transformation, and return to the light. Each year, this ritual invites us to honor the cycle that has passed, set new intentions, and reconnect with the Earth, Spirit, and our own inner path.

Winter Solstice Offering

The seed of a new intention

This morning, as I was preparing this article, a quiet revelation settled in my heart. A seed planted itself within me: for December 2026, I want to create and lead the Soyal Ceremony for my community, for those who follow the Hopi teachings and attend the workshops at the Yoga studio.

This intention comes at a particular time in my life. In few days, I will experience my first Soyal without the physical presence of Grandmother Medicine Song. Last January, she “dropped her robe,” as the Hopi say so beautifully — she laid down her earthly garment and returned to the spirit world.

Her absence is felt, inevitably. And yet, in the space she left, something else is emerging: clarity, a deep question.What do we want to create? In which direction do we choose to walk?

This is precisely where the medicine of the Soyal Ceremony lives, returning each year at the winter solstice: it invites us to measure the path traveled since the last cycle, to honor what was planted, and consciously sow the seeds of what is coming.

Understanding Hopi circular time through the Soyal Ceremony

For the Hopi, time is not a straight line moving forward relentlessly. It is a spiral, a circle that returns again and again, though never to the exact same point. Each return of Soyal is not a simple repetition, but a deepening, a new layer of understanding revealed.

The Hopi teach that ceremonies are our living markers. They help us measure not the passing of time, but our own transformation.

In modern Western culture, we often live in the amnesia of the present. We forget where we come from, and the constant rush forward makes us lose the memory of our own steps. Cyclical ceremonies offer a precious gift: the possibility of remembering.

Each winter solstice becomes an opportunity to turn intentions into action and inscribe that transformation in the living ritual of Soyal.

Soyal in the yearly ceremonial cycle: celebrating the winter solstice

As I shared in my recent article on Wuwuchim, the Hopi ceremonial year begins with the New Fire in November. During Wuwuchim, we light the first flame of the new cycle, planting our intentions like seeds in the fertile soil of the kiva.

This year, I asked to:

• Learn how to lead Hopi ceremonies

• Learn the Hopi language

• Advance the work on the sheepfold, a place that will one day become our open-sky kiva — a sacred space where the community can gather, where ceremonies will take root, and where each person can find refuge to honor ancestral teachings

• Walk more and more in peace and harmony with my partner

These seeds planted during Wuwuchim, we now nourish them during Soyal. The winter solstice becomes the moment when we bless these intentions, offer them to the newborn light, and ask the spirits to support their germination.

What each Soyal Ceremony reveals at the winter solstice

There is something deeply transformative about returning to the same ceremony each year. Not because we mechanically repeat the same gestures, but because we are no longer the same person who stood there the year before.

The mirror of cyclical time

Imagine each Soyal as a mirror held to your soul. This mirror not only reflects who you are today, but also who you were a year ago, and the distance you have traveled in between.

Last year, during my final Soyal with Grandmother Medicine Song, I was a teacher and student listening to her guide. This year, I stand at a different threshold: the threshold of choosing myself fully for the ceremonial path. Saying “yes” to becoming a keeper of these sacred ceremonies, to leading them myself for my community.

This transformation did not happen in a day. It wove itself slowly, month after month, through daily practice and the ten actions of preparation I shared last year. And I do not walk this path alone: Satya is here to train and guide me, fully supporting this journey.

It is the return of Soyal that allows me to see this evolution, to name it, and to honor it.

Ritual tools for winter solstice

Questions to ask from one year to the next

To make the Soyal Ceremony a true tool for personal transformation, I invite you to ask yourself these questions each year, at the winter solstice.

Looking back with gratitude

• Where was I during the last Soyal? Emotionally, spiritually, materially?

• What intentions did I set? Which ones bore fruit?

• Which prayers were answered, even in unexpected ways?

• What has changed in me since the last winter solstice?

Observing the present with clarity

• Who have I become today?

• Which parts of me have strengthened? Which still need attention?

• How much have I walked in harmony with my deepest values?

• What fills me with gratitude in this moment?

Sowing the future with intention

• Who do I want to become by next Soyal?

• Which seeds do I want to plant now?

• What will I ask the Kachinas when they descend from the mountains?

• How can I serve my community, my family, and Mother Earth in this new cycle?

  
  

Honoring Grandmother Medicine Song and the transmission

I cannot speak of this Soyal without honoring the one who transmitted everything to me. Grandmother Medicine Song “dropped her robe” in January, and her departure created a void nothing can fill. But she also left us an immense inheritance.

Thanks to her, today I find myself in a place of deep joy and alignment. Thanks to her, I know the Hopi teachings that nourish my soul and guide my steps. Thanks to her, I understand that transmission is not a burden, but an honor.

She taught me that ceremonies do not belong to us — they belong to the people, to the Earth, to the Creator. Our role is simply to keep them alive, to offer them with humility and respect, to create the sacred space where others can reconnect.

So this year, I walk toward Soyal with a heart full of gratitude for the one who guided me, and with the certainty that her spirit continues to accompany me. Her teaching burns within me like the sacred flame of Wuwuchim — silent, but alive — illuminating my path toward each Soyal Ceremony and each winter solstice.

Pahos: carriers of our prayers in a changing world

In Hopi tradition, pahos (prayer sticks) hold a central place in ceremonies. These sacred objects, made from small branches adorned with eagle or wild turkey feathers tied with natural cotton string, are created with ceremonial attention during the Soyal Ceremony and blessed in the kivas.

The deeper meaning of pahos

Pahos are not decorative objects. They are carriers of prayers, living offerings transmitting our intentions to the spirits. The stick represents connection to the spiritual world, while the feather is the vehicle that carries our breath, our prayer, to the heavens.

Grandmother Medicine Song taught with great precision about pahos. She said:“The stick is the message, and the feathers are the call to the bird-spirit or totem tasked with carrying the message to the heavens.”

One end of the prayer stick is planted into the earth. When the breeze moves the feathers, it activates the energy of the stick, linking the earthly request to the sky.

She insisted on the sacred rules:Do not touch a paho for four days after placing it. Doing so would bring misfortune. Even after that, it may only be touched with the left hand — the side of the heart.Pahos remain in place for 21 days, after which they can be dismantled respectfully.

During Soyal, pahos are placed in sacred locations: in fields to bless future crops, in homes to protect families, or at water sources to honor Mother Earth.

Hands of light offering a paho

Creating your own paho in a time of planetary change

We are living through deep planetary transformation. Ecological imbalance, social tension, climate upheavals remind us daily that we must relearn how to live in harmony with the Earth.

In this context, creating symbolic pahos becomes an act of gentle spiritual resistance — a commitment to actively participate in the healing of the world.It is a way of saying:“I remember. I reconnect. I commit.”

Practical ritual: create your intention paho for Soyal

I offer you a simple but powerful ritual to perform at the winter solstice.You do not need to be Hopi to honor this practice — what matters is sincere intention and respect.

Required materials

• A small branch naturally fallen from a tree (10–15 cm)

• A feather (found in nature)

• Natural cotton thread or ecological string

• Paper and pen

• A white candle

• Sage or Palo Santo for cleansing

  
  

The 7-step ritual

1. Purify your space

2. Connect with the cycle of the year

3. Write your yearly review

4. Set your intentions for the coming cycle

5. Create your paho

6. Bless your paho

7. Plant your paho in the earth

Sacred rules:

• Do not touch your paho for 4 days after planting

• After 4 days, if you must touch it, use only your left hand

• Leave it in place for 21 full days

• After 21 days, dismantle it with respect

During these 21 days, observe how the wind moves the feathers.Each movement is your prayer — activated, ascending, traveling.A teaching in patience, surrender, and trust in the spiritual process.

The promise of return: Soyal 2026

By planting this seed today — the intention to create the Soyal Ceremony for my community in December 2026 — I am participating in the same cycle I invite you to embrace.

In one year, who will I have become? Will I have learned enough to guide others with respect and humility? Will the sheepfold be ready to welcome a ceremonial circle? Will my partner and I continue to deepen our shared path of peace?

I don’t know the answers yet. And that is the beauty of the cycle.We plant in trust, and allow the mystery to unfold.

This is the medicine of ceremonial repetition. It is not a wheel turning in circles. It is a spiral rising, deepening, elevating us toward a more aligned version of ourselves — cycle after cycle, Soyal after Soyal.

Walking with the cycles: an invitation

Soyal invites us to slow down in a world moving too fast.To remember in a world that forgets.To reconnect in a world that separates us.

Whether you honor this ceremony in the Hopi tradition, or create your own winter solstice ritual, the essential thing is to commit to the practice of conscious return.

In few days, I will experience my first Soyal without Grandmother Medicine Song. I don’t yet know what I will feel. But I know I will carry her memory with gratitude, and walk toward the future she encouraged me to create.

And you? Where were you at this time last year? Who have you become since? What do you long for in the year to come?

Take the time to ask yourself these questions.Create your paho.Plant your seeds.And let the light of Soyal illuminate your path.

To go further

If you wish to deepen your understanding of Hopi ceremonies and their relevance for contemporary life, I invite you to:

• Revisit last year’s article on the ten actions to prepare for Soyal

• Discover the New Fire Ceremony, Wuwuchim, which precedes Soyal

• Explore the Hopi teachings I share

• Book a drum healing session to reconnect with ancestral energies

• Join workshops at the Yoga With You studio in Le Bouscat, where we explore these practices together

• Join our community to walk together with respect and compassion

May the Soyal Ceremony, at the heart of the winter solstice, accompany you through your own cycle of transformation, healing, and light.

Ask’wa — And so it is.