Together we are in a time when what is real and true is hard to discern from what is not. Developing our ability to pay attention to what matters most and our willingness to be with what is, exactly as it is, seems like our only choice. Finally.
Today, riding on thousands of years of human lineage marking the moment we call Winter Solstice—the shortest day of the year, the longest, darkest, night—there’s never been a better time to stop in with your own darkness, the darkness we all carry. There’s no better time to forgive yourself your trespasses and love yourself anyway—even though you are imperfect, even though you cause harm on a daily basis, even though you can’t always get it right.
Today is a great day to reflect upon (and then, again, forgive yourself for), all the ways you allow yourself to be tricked or tranced out of your innate integrity, delude yourself out of reality and into comfort, and ask others to collude and play along with storylines that do not serve health, growth, deepening into service.
Stop. Face the darkness. Stay a minute. The ever-moving light of the sun is paused, that’s an honest place to be today…soon, return to the light. Light and illusion both shapeshift and reverberate but, they are not the same.
Here’s something real and true—I don’t know if Christmas is really Jesus’s birthday, I don’t know if there’s going to be real change in how we care for each other and our planet, I don’t know if we can save ourselves from extinction—but I do know this:
Winter Solstice is actually the few-days-period when the light of the sun is neither increasing nor decreasing. Then, slowly, it will come back bringing more light, more warmth, and the beginning of the end of the winter season right at the same time as the winter season begins…so relief, change, and…it’s a long road.
This feels familiar. I can say this about many things…whoa, yes much is changing, and, oh whoa, the road is long. Let’s practice endurance and resiliency, and tether ourselves to truth, the truth that we all agree upon—kindness, love, generosity, giving a shit.
What is real and true needs our attention. What is not, needs our rejection, our refusal, our outrage. You do know the difference and importantly, you can make a difference—whether it’s by raising kind humans, creating a humane work environment, or standing for what you believe in. Most big differences are made by many individual actions, many voices, many hearts.
Winter Solstice has reminded humans of our profound connection to light, to warmth, to the importance of community since the beginning of time. We have used this time to pray, to connect, to be grateful, to reset and dream into the future.
May you find yourself in this strong stream of our collective lineage today and through the dark season ahead. May you make space to rest, to play, to light a candle and say a prayer for our tender world.
It is time now.
