The Wisdom in Honoring the Winter Solstice

By: Dr. Denise Renye

“Plants and animals don’t fight the winter; they don’t pretend it’s not happening and attempt to carry on living the same lives that they lived in the summer. They prepare. They adapt. They perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them through. Winter is a time of withdrawing from the world, maximizing scant resources, carrying out acts of brutal efficiency and vanishing from sight; but that’s where the transformation occurs.” - Katherine May

If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, you’ll notice this is the time of the year that’s the darkest. The days are shorter and the nights are longer. We are flooded with moonlight more so in wintertime than the sunshine of summer.  The sky feels pitch black at 6 p.m. People make jokes about it feeling like the middle of the night when it’s still early. We’re approaching the season of winter and that means slowing down, hibernation, and death. Look around at the trees…the leaves have fallen offering us symbols of letting go. There is a chill in the air offering us a symbol of sleep or even death. Now is a time of letting go just as the trees release all vestiges of their leaves.

The winter solstice is not only a time of letting go, it’s also a period for shoring up resources as animals do. We see squirrels bury their nuts in preparation for what’s ahead. Witness how woodpeckers stockpile food in nooks and crannies. Then we have bears who don’t sleep all winter but do enter into a reduced metabolic state. All of nature prepares to hunker down. It seems that all of nature…except for humans.

Human beings typically engage in the opposite behavior at this time of year; hustle and bustle is conditioned into us at this time of the year. Starting in November, we speed up. We cook feasts, buy gifts, and become more frenzied doing this and that. Some people feel pressured to “finish the year strong” and “start the new year with a bang.” They rush to do even more but the winter solstice invites us to do less, to embrace silence.

We can honor the rhythm of winter by withdrawing from the world in ways that feel right. They may feel unfamiliar because we are so conditioned to lean in and be a part of what’s around us instead. Maybe it means staying home more or taking solo walks. Slowing down can feel incredibly challenging because the regular busyness of life often distracts from the feelings inside. If we’re rushing around, it’s harder to notice the body’s cues or to become curious about lingering emotions. Instead, we’re too caught up in our to-do lists to notice what’s happening internally.

However, if you’re able, I invite you to do exactly that…notice what’s happening internally.

Below are some tips to honor the winter solstice:

·      Be gentle with yourself at this time of year. Allow yourself to say “no” when you mean “no.” You don’t have to say yes to every invitation.

·      Keep your therapy appointments. It may be tempting to let those fall by the wayside as you’re traveling or fitting in more activities but you need the resourcing therapy provides. Therapy is a human equivalent of a squirrel hoarding its nuts.

·      Make time for meditation. Create an internal version of the bear cave and let yourself withdraw from the world.

·      Cultivate or deepen your spiritual practices, whatever that looks like and feels like for you.

·      Conduct a death ritual for any behavior, habit, relationship, or pattern that is no longer serving you. Recognize by doing so, you’re making space for something new. As the cycle goes, rebirth follows death.

Rather than being separate from nature, let us remember that we are nature. You may find that following the energy of the season is precisely what you’re craving. Go ahead and give that to yourself. You might be amazed at what you discover.

Journal Prompts

·      When you imagine slowing down, what feelings and sensations arise within?

·      What can I let go of in my life?

·      Imagining yourself as a winter tree, what does it feel like to let go of your leaves?

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