Solstice Blessing
Winter solstice is a time for reflection, quietude, and repose. A time for completion. A time for connection.
The busyness of the holidays certainly competes with our need for inner stillness. Though the holidays urge us to bustle with celebratory energy and togetherness, it is also filled with opportune moments for intimacy and self-reflection.
I have always loved the paradox this season holds. A time for introspection along with an essential remembering of how we belong together. It is a time when we need both boundary and closeness to feel for what keeps us sharing in relationship.
Winter is a season for laying to rest what no longer serves your life’s forward movement. It is a time to feel the lessons that have been learned and appreciate the insights received.
I find myself deeply nourished by the contemplative energy this season brings and have grown an extra special fondness for practices that help me to honor completion. For me personally, this reflective time allows me more ease with making changes and a conscious movement forward that feels as freeing.
When you give time to feel what has found completion within you, you bring choice and clarity to what is letting go. Acknowledging what stays and what goes with acceptance can bring immense amounts of peace with how you honor, release, and receive.
As we learn to consciously sever ties with what no longer serves us a tiny death occurs, and so does a rebirth if we allow it. Bringing forth new creative energy, inspiration for life, and excitement.
Winter holds both a storing quality and an honoring of what is being laid to rest from within. As nature empties to the point of essence, we too are given permission to sustain the essential and welcome what tender new beginnings are underway.
I have noticed over the years that around winter solstice in particular my intuition is heightened, my creativity is piqued, and I long to wake up in the early mornings before first light. It is as if a deeper part of myself knows to get up, take advantage of the stillness, and enjoy the spaciousness the dark mornings provide.
When we allow ourselves to connect in and feel more of who we are, we restore in ways that offer the necessary reset for what is to come.
What are you noticing right now in your life that is letting go? What are you getting ready to release? Are you feeling the presence of what may come in its place that you are now ready to receive?
For me, I am eagerly awaiting some quality downtime, to let go a little bit more of the urgency around working hard, and lean more into the pleasure that comes with creative spaciousness.
As much as I am excited to connect with those I love and care for, I am also seeking the inner repose that this time offers. I hold both in balance and it may be the first time in my life I recognize I need both - the bustle and the stillness.
May you have the fortune of deep time on your side this holiday season.
May you feel loved and embraced by the ones you care for and love.
May this new year bring you the joy and freedom you crave.
Steeping in the mystery,
Andrea