Today is Winter Solstice, marking the shortest day of the year. I usually celebrate the Solstice because it also marks the shift to longer days again, the return of the light. It’s considered an auspicious time to make intentions; to plant the seeds of the new year.
For me, winter has always been a hard time. I run cold already and the chilly, dark season really affects me physically and mentally. I have a hard time feeling “like myself” when it’s gray and cold, let alone during a pandemic. But something I’ve been contemplating recently is: well, aren’t the times when I don’t feel bright, inspired, warm, and optimistic, still a part of myself? I tend to want to stay in the light and get frustrated with myself when I’m not there. But of course I know that we need to experience the dark to appreciate the light. And what’s more, there is nothing that proves that light is better than dark. I had been contemplating this recently, then serendipitously listened to some thoughts of Francis Weller (via a Mark Groves podcast) in which he said some things so profound I had to transpose his words for you here. He said,
“Nature is not always improving itself, sometimes it goes through profound periods of decay and destruction and death, fallowness. Our psyches were shaped in the context of nature over hundreds of thousands of years so why wouldn’t our psyches also be akin to the patterns and rhythms of nature? We need the darkness, but in that binary system of light=good, darkness=bad, whether it comes in skin tones or in terms of our ideations, we have lost our relationship to the darkness... And in the absence of that relationship to darkness, we don’t know how to understand times of descent, when were taken down below the ground, whether that’s through grief, or loss, or depression, or suffering of any kind, or through collapse of structures as we’re experiencing right now. We don’t know how to relate to it. So we keep scrambling to get back up to the light, to where we can see what’s going on. But what psyche, what soul, invites us to do in times of loss is to develop a second kind of sight, to learn to see in the darkness, and to discover the holiness that dwells in the darkness.”
This year has been, of course, unusually dark for nearly everyone. We’re so drawn to the light, like a plant reaching its face towards the sun, and I think we’re all about ready for this year to be over and find out what the new year will bring. But, as Weller also beautifully said, “You were conceived in utter darkness in the womb of your mother. Tell me those things aren’t holy? Tell me that’s not where the sacred also dwells. So part of our problem right now… is to recover our relationship to the light, but also to the dark. And that’s where we find soul.”
Today, Winter Solstice marks an actual shift on an undisputed planetary level. Although it’s the shortest day of the year for us in the Northern Hemisphere, it marks the return of longer days and more light. This is an auspicious day to make some powerful intentions for the next solar year. I feel an excited optimism just thinking about the return of the light. But one thing I’m doing differently in my intention setting today is that I’m not intending for everything to brighten, for everything to improve. I’m also asking myself: what can I learn from my shadows, the parts of me I don’t like to show? I am putting forth my intentions for the ways I want to grow, for the things I want to manifest. But another part of my intention is to look for the ways I can honor the shadows, and learn to, as Weller said, “discover the holiness that dwells in the darkness.”
I encourage you to take some time today to meditate, contemplate, journal, maybe even create a vision board, about what you want to focus on for the future.
I also encourage you to consider the incredible, life changing journey that is a 6 month Prana Vinyasa Yoga Teacher Training. It will be my honor to lead one from April to October 2021, in Mancos and with a virtual option too. Discounts if you already have taken a 200 hour YTT or my 100 Hour Self-Discovery Yoga Immersion, and one BIPOC scholarship available.
Solstice Blessings my friend~