Speaker 1 0:37

this is a time when many traditions celebrate the light. We light candles, we put up Christmas tree lights and there's Kwanzaa a big tendency towards celebrating the light. And the counsel would be why not celebrate the dark? We certainly don't spend our summer solstice celebrating the dark. We celebrate the light and then midwinter we go to celebrate the light. And the question is what is it that we skip when we don't also celebrate the dark?

Speaker 1 1:17

This is a very yin time of year where we have a chance to slow down and to nourish those deeper asks of ourselves that aren't nourished by doing an activity. So going on retreat is very beneficial and there's a way where we can incorporate retreat-like behavior and conduct into our winter daily rituals and also if we want to do a specific ritual in the winter solstice. So I'm going to describe a ritual that I like to do during the winter is to turn off all the lights. Let it be at dark time, in the night time, make sure everything is as dark and dark as possible, and to simply sit in that darkness by yourself, with family, with friends, and feel into the stillness and the rest, with the time to be, with not knowing being in the quiet.

Speaker 1 2:33

Many people set intentions this time of year as to what they want to do for the new year and kind of thinking of this time as a new beginning. But that council is also instead, maybe use this time as not as a new beginning but as a nothingness, and wait a month or two to set the intentions. When we allow ourselves to deeply be in not knowing and stillness, a deeper sense of what it is that will nourish our lives emerges. But I don't think we can get to knowing what it is we want without entering into deep silence. This is the time of year when we can deepen our meditative practices, our qigong and our dreaming. Thank you for listening. I hope your winter is deep and quiet.