Tag: solstice

Winter Solstice 2023–Paradox

Winter Solstice occurs at 7:27 pm Pacific Time on Thursday, December 21st, 2023.

In the US, we usually think of this as the beginning of winter, but in the Celtic tradition, it’s midwinter, the depth of darkness. The winter season begins after Halloween (Samhain) and ends at Imbolc, February 1st, the very beginning of Spring. This way of circling through the seasons aligns well with the Pacific Northwest climate we live in now.

Regardless of when winter begins, we can learn its rhythms and invitations by noticing what the living earth and her creatures are doing and practicing this in our own lives:

  • Go dormant, hibernate, lie fallow.
  • Root, return to ground, compost.
  • Go within, turn inward, introspect.
  • Listen deeply and listen some more.
  • Welcome darkness and night.
  • Slow down, stop, rest.

It’s hard to do this in our go-go culture. And it’s harder yet during December when we have created a light-filled holiday time. It feels like time speeds up between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Parties, Christmas lights, celebrations to drive the dark away… just when the living earth is inviting us to go into a slower, darker, more inward time. It can feel quite paradoxical.

I am practicing with this paradox in a few ways…

Like the collage at the top of this blog, which spirals from Fall to Winter (bottom right, earthwise and ending in the middle), I find the quiet, dark spot in the center of any moment. I take that moment to land, to feel held, to quiet and rest. Even though the 10,000 things are clamoring for my attention (and often succeed in getting it), I practice returning to the darkness, the stopping, the slowness.

I am also practicing the following mantra I learned from Miranda MacPherson. I start by just sensing my body, returning to the moment in this way. Then I slowly recite it inwardly with my breath. This has been a beautiful, restful practice for me. I do it at least once a day and sometimes more, repeating it as many times as I can before moving to the next thing on my plate.

Be nothing.

Do nothing.

Get nothing.

Become nothing.

Seek for nothing.

Relinquish nothing.

Be as you are.

Rest in God. (Sometimes I say, “Rest in the dark.”)

This is the breath practice I am finding nourishing:

  • Inhale: Be nothing.
  • Exhale: Do nothing. Get nothing.
  • Inhale: Become nothing.
  • Exhale: Seek for nothing. Relinquish nothing.
  • Inhale: Be as you are.
  • Exhale: Rest in God (the dark).

How do you hold the paradox of light and dark?

How do you find a place of rest
in the midst of the busyness?

If you would like to practice with others and you live locally, I have two opportunities for being in community in these dark times:

Winter Solstice Celebration, December 21st, 7:00-8:00 pm
Outside, in the courtyard at QUUF. Bring a chair and dress for the weather!

Wild Church Port Townsend, December 23rd, 10-11:30 am
At Fort Townsend under the big Doug Fir. Bring a chair and dress for the weather!

For those who live too far away to join in person:

Chant & Song for Community, Healing & Hope will start up again on zoom in January on the 1st and 3rd Thursdays from 7:00 – 8:00 pm PT.

Read more on my Calendar.

Summer Solstice 2023–Fullness & Stillness

Breathing in, I take in the fullness.
Breathing out, I rest in the stillness.

Breathe this gatha (mindfulness verse) with me.

Breathing in, I take in the fullness.
Breathing out, I rest in the stillness.

This is a Summer Solstice invitation–to take in the fullness of summer and to rest in the stillness within.

Summer Solstice, a time when the sun seems to stand still in the sky, occurs at 7:57 am PT on Wednesday, June 21st, 2023.

Breathing in, I take in the fullness.

The fullness is all around us.

Flowers blossoming–in our gardens right now: floribunda roses, foxglove, oxeye daisy, euphorbia, rhododendron, native and cultivated bleeding heart, chives, sage, lady’s mantle, California poppies, orange Oriental poppies, valerian, geranium, fringe cups, toad flax, purple bells, peonies…

Leaves in full verdancy–lady, bracken and sword ferns, hazelnut, birch, witch hazel, asian pear, cherry, apple, mountain ash, vine and big-leaf maples, nettle, cleavers, herb robert, violets, kale, cilantro, lettuce…

And so many more that I did not name… Not to mention the birds!

As Gunilla Morris says in A Mystic Garden, you can almost hear the earth humming with growth.

Breathing out, I rest in the stillness.

And the stillness?

It’s as if all this verdant and vivid growth is held in the stillness–in the ground of the living earth, in the rays of the sun, in the vast vault of sky.

Without this holding, nothing could grow–without the earth the roots root in, without the light of the sun that creates life, without the air to breathe…

Breathing in, I take in the fullness.
Breathing out, I rest in the stillness.

Isn’t this so like our lives?

I can get so caught up in the fullness–in answering its call to tend, to enjoy, to jump in–that I forget about the stillness holding me.

Sometimes I can get a visceral sense of the holding by just lying down on the floor to do some somatics or by stepping outside into the living earth or by just sitting with tea. I used to take 5 minute “Do Nothing Breaks,” too.

This summer, let’s savor the fullness–revel in it (not just work!)–and also take time to rest in the stillness. We need both to be whole.

Breathing in, I take in the fullness.
Breathing out, I rest in the stillness.

Which part of this gatha do you need
to be reminded of most?

How will you practice that?