Winter Solstice is tugging at me this year, perhaps because so much of this long year has been about pause, and full of death and the unknown. I yearn for new life.

Yet I know that new life takes time to develop, timing that is not in my control. (A warm spring does not usually arrive here in the north until at least four months after the first return of the sun.)

And while my mind knows that slow gestation in the dark is vital to Life, does my belly really trust that something new is growing amidst all that is broken and unknown in my life, (and in the life of the country)?

Perhaps that trust comes only with the other offerings of solsticetime: rest, stillness, contemplation. Invitation to open to a cosmic universe much bigger than me.

Maybe if I reflect on what I’ve cleared from my life this year and what deadweight remains.

Maybe if I consider whether anything changed this year about who and what matter most to me, and how I want to support them.

Maybe if I remember to enjoy sunsets and the night sky more often.

To savor rest and explore my dreams.

To listen in silence for what wishes to speak to me.

Maybe then I can find the ancient one within me who stared at the community solstice fire, trusting and celebrating, knowing she was embedded in mystery and magic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Are you following the path of Jupiter and Saturn as they gradually move closer together in the just-after-sunset night sky? Their conjunction on the solstice will be complete, when the two planets will look like one bright star.)

 

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