Happy happy Winter Solstice 🤗☀️🌍 🔥
// And indeed, a Happy Christmas, Happy Hanukkah for last week, Happy Thanksgiving for last month, and any of the winter celebrations you are marking this year 🙏🏻 //
Wherever you are, may you be able to spend time with loved ones, may you enjoy a good appetite and may you have the time you need to pause alongside all the busymaking and merriment.
Today has been the shortest day of our year, and tonight will be our longest night. Here, we are in the very deep and dark depths of winter. The darkest point in our year. Darkness. Stillness. Cold. Quiet. How does that feel to you? What does it bring up? Can you handle it?
Noticing this shortest day today draws us into remembering that we live our big, little lives on this beautiful, unimaginable earth. It asks us to recall the simple truths – that we as humans have forever been enamoured with the cycles of the sun and moon to help us understand, mark and track time – and to remember that today marks an almighty passing of time.
This is the end of our cycle around the sun for one year, and the beginning of the next.
As the earth dances around the sun, she tilts on an axis, and today, she is tilting the farthest away from the sun that she can. A lonnnnnng stretch out into the darkness of the universe.
As we spin and turn in this dance with the sun, the sun will begin to return in the coming days – the days will tentatively start to get longer. We could even think of this time as the sun’s birthday…!
It’s a time for rest, celebration, and reflection as the new year dawns.
The invitation, as always, is simply to pause enough to notice these next few days.
I’m a big believer in noticing. Notice the sun in the sky, notice our family and friends, notice the shifting season, noticing how our gardens have changed, how our thoughts can shift, notice our feelings and emotions and thoughts; notice our lives, our hopes, our dreams, our playfulness and our seriousness. Notice all that is, and all that we wish to bring.
Notice that today, the earth is shifting and changing. She is always changing, shifting, growing and breathing. As are we, should we stop to notice so. And if this is so, then where are we on our journeys, and what do we wish to bring about next?
So, listen deeply and celebrate heartily. If you are hungry, eat. If you are tired, sleep. If you are too busy, take something off your list. If you are feeling low, reach out for help – you are loved and there will be someone in your life who wants to support you. Remember that rest is radical. If you want to reflect on your year, reflect. If giving gifts brings you joy, give gifts. If you can help another, or buy some extra food for the foodbank, know that your help is needed. Further – can you ask yourself what you need? Can you tend to those needs?
We are seeing every week how harsh this winter is for us all – and how crippling it is for many. How will we respond? How will we reach out to others with love, support and solidarity?
So, reflect on all of this with the energy of the winter solstice, and remember that you are sitting on this very earth that is spinning and dancing around the sun. Know that you are part of this, too.
