Winter Solstice
Winter Solstice is upon us today, the light of the Sun begins a new solar cycle. Rays shine into the dark and nurture newborn life to be cultivated. This is mirrored in nature and the nature of life all around us, as the seeds are buried in the darkness of the Earth they emerge once again with the life-giving rays of the Sun. In winter everything lies dormant in the silent earth, it is a sacred time of rest and reflection before the awakening and the slow build-up towards brighter days.
The energy of winter is that of going within. It's the fruitful darkness and silence out of which our soul's yearnings and new inspirations can eventually emerge. As we consciously link our awareness to nature's cycles, our understanding of our own personal growth cycles begins to deepen.
Why do we spend so much time suppressing and hiding our darkness? When negative emotions come up and we feel them, they're inconvenient, uncomfortable, or worse, we make ourselves wrong for feeling them. When we fear our own darkness, we cut ourselves off from an essential source of our own personal power. The key is not in letting darkness overwhelm our lives and our thoughts but in understanding that darkness can be one of the greatest catalysts for personal growth and transformation. Perhaps even our way to enlightenment. By allowing ourselves to feel our emotions and experience our own darkness, the darkness itself can become the spiritual cradle into which our inner light and a new cycle for us is born.
Allow your feelings to guide you, both light and dark because your feelings are your truth.
Winter Solstice is the great stillness before the Sun's strength builds, and days grow longer. This is a time to nurture yourself through acts of self-kindness and love, a time to reflect and set intentions for our year ahead.
However you choose to spend this day, whether pausing in quiet reflection or celebrating within your community, there are many fires burning brightly on this planet today!
Sending you all abundant blessings for this coming year!
The Shortest Day by Susan Cooper
And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year’s sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, revelling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us — listen!
All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And now so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.