The Water That Remembers: A Yule Reflection Through the Lens of Marina Utrabo

Article Written by Epifania Arriagada
Featuring Photography by Marina Utrabo | Brazil
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marinautrabofotografia
Pexels Portfolio: Marina Utrabo Photography

Yule has always been known as the turning of the great wheel. It is the moment where darkness reaches its fullest depth and the first thread of returning light breaks across the spiritual horizon. It is the season of becoming and unbecoming. The season where we face ourselves honestly in the cold and choose what we carry into the next cycle.

The work of Brazilian photographer Marina Utrabo is a perfect vessel for this threshold. Her imagery does not shy away from the truth of winter. She walks directly into the emotional landscape that Yule represents. Her portraits feel like myths pulled from rivers, from memory, from the places inside us that still speak in the language of tide and shadow.

Marina’s visual world is not the glittering winter of holiday cards. It is the ancient winter. The winter that tests you, purifies you, and makes you holy by demanding honesty. Her subjects often appear drenched, vulnerable, and emerging from water as if reborn or surrendered. And that, in essence, is Yule.

Yule is not the celebration of light alone. It is the reverence for the moment before the light arrives.

In Marina’s water series, a woman lies against the stone as though listening for the heartbeat of the Earth. She folds her arms into herself. She sinks. She rises. She rests. The water becomes a mother, a confessional, a mirror. Her clothing floats like a ghost of her old life. Her eyes speak the language of someone who has faced her own winter and lived to tell the story.

This is the heart of Marina’s artistry. She captures the sacred surrender. The moment before transformation. The softness that comes after exhaustion. The truth that water demands.

In Yule tradition, water holds deep symbolism. It is tied to the womb of the dark goddess, the hidden well of intuition, and the rivers that guide souls between worlds. Water is memory. Water is healing. Water is initiation. Marina honors that with reverence.

Her photography feels like ritual. Like baptism. Like the body returning to its first element.

Her Brazilian roots add a powerful layer to this seasonal narrative. Yule is a northern celebration, yet its core themes live universally across cultures: rebirth, renewal, the sacred feminine, the turning of cycles. Marina’s eye bridges hemispheres and reminds us that winter is not simply a temperature. Winter is a spiritual condition.

Her work invites the viewer to ask
What part of me is ready to be washed clean
What truth or fear is ready to dissolve
What identity must I release in order to step into my returning light

Yule is the moment we enter the river and emerge changed. Marina captures that metamorphosis with tenderness that feels both intimate and mythic.

Her art does not simply depict emotion. It carries it. She photographs the weight of a breath, the quiet of surrender, and the power of being witnessed in a moment of honest vulnerability. She gives the season of shadow a face, a voice, a pulse.

As we step into Yule, may Marina’s work remind you to honor your own winter. To let the water hold you. To let it cleanse you. To trust the slow return of your inner flame.

Because the light always comes back. And it comes back stronger when we allow ourselves to fully feel the dark.

Marina is a Brazilian fine art photographer whose work blends folklore, feminine mysticism, and emotional storytelling. She creates imagery that feels ancient and intimate, as if pulled from the memor of the land itself.