A Winter Solstice Meditation
Updated: May 22

In the old days, winter solstice was a time of quietude, of firelight, of dreaming and storytelling. When trees lose their leaves, grasses turn brown and seeds germinate in the cold earth. All around us the season seems to reach a standstill — a point of repose. The energy of winter is that of going within. It's the fruitful darkness and silence out of which our soul's yearnings and new inspirations can eventually emerge. As we consciously link our awareness to nature's cycles, our understanding of our own personal growth cycles begin to deepen.
In centuries past our ancestors were a part of the natural world – there was little separation between the physical and the more than physical. Their seasonal rites – whether boisterous, solemn or both – were a chance to step into another reality, a sacred time radically different from the time of their daily routines. The sacred (or the more than physical) for them was a realm charged with power, a reality that transcended the merely human and one in which anything could happen.
Indigenous elders know the precise day of the winter solstice by a sun ray striking a certain mark on an east facing wall in the pueblo. Priests and chiefs then began secret rites in their underground ceremonial sites or kivas which often lasted as long as 16 days. Once ceremonialists were satisfied that they had successfully conducted the precise and elaborate rituals and they could assure the people that the pueblo and the world had been recreated, they emerged to initiate four days of public feasts and celebration.
In those times, people were afraid that the nights would grow longer and darker and the sun would never return. Today, we are still often afraid of the dark, reluctant to be still and quiet. I believe that we need to embrace and nurture these qualities. From the dark recess of our being, the wellspring of our authenticity and the many gifts that we are given to share in the world flow.
When we fear our own darkness, we cut ourselves off from an essential source of our own personal power. The key is not in letting darkness overwhelm our lives and our thoughts but in understanding that darkness can be one of the greatest catalysts for personal growth and transformation.
In the business of our daily life, and with all of the modern inventions that separate us from nature, we do not take time to enter – or even notice the changes in the natural world that signal a thinning of the veil that separates the physical from the more than physical.
The poet, David Whyte provides a lovely contemplation of winter and the blessing available to us during this season:

No one but me by the fire,
my hands burning
red in the palms while
the night wind carries
everything away outside.
All this petty worry
while the great cloak
of the sky grows dark
and intense
round every living thing.
What is precious
inside us does not
care to be known
by the mind
in ways that diminish
its presence.
What we strive for
in perfection
is not what turns us
into the lit angel
we desire,
what disturbs
and then nourishes
has everything
we need.
What we hate
in ourselves
is what we cannot know
in ourselves but
what is true to the pattern
does not need
to be explained.
Inside everyone
is a great shout of joy
waiting to be born.
Even with the summer
so far off
I feel it grown in me
now and ready
to arrive in the world.
All those years
listening to those
who had
nothing to say.
All those years
forgetting
how everything
has its own voice
to make
itself heard.
All those years
forgetting
how easily
you can belong
to everything
simply by listening.
And the slow
difficulty
of remembering
how everything
is born from
an opposite
and miraculous
otherness.
Silence and winter
has led me to that
otherness.
So let this winter
of listening
be enough
for the new life
I must call my own.
Let us be grateful for the wisdom winter brings in teaching us about the need for withdrawal as an essential part of renewal.
Blessings to you and yours this winter. May it be a time of discovery and self acceptance.
