We're halfway through the dark days. Let us rejoice
as we stumble through the grey and rain still waiting.
Humans have been marking solstice for untold eons, noting the rhythms of our days and years and skies. Human 8.1 version is less in tune, distracted as we are by 24/7 light and food and other disruptors to the natural cycles.
There is much we can learn by observing the natural world as it shifts and returns, again and again, from rest to awakening, dark to light.
Today the daffodil fronds are four inches high; the trees are greening not with leaves but with their fuzzy grey-green to lime blankets of lichens and moss. It takes more determination for us 9-5 people to see the changes outside, with the dull sun falling to a dim slant around four. Although it heralds coming light, Solstice is about the dark, about being in its embrace for a while to see what is growing there. It's time to investigate Shadow, the resisted or unclaimed aspects of self that can cause us and others trouble when we deny or refuse to manage them. It's time to prepare for new beginnings, for the shedding of skins we've outgrown so we again move with grace and expansiveness when the time is right.
To do this we are still a while, contemplating our history and our present before wriggling out of the old fit. The eye to history makes sure we aren't leaving anything too useful behind. That's often what's parading around as shadow material. The sweet sweet persona with occasional rages, the extrovert with the niggling self doubt: which aspect is outdated and ready to shelve? More likely, it's not amputatation but integration that is needed to help us say no, clearly and firmly, when we need to such that our trampled toes way down there under our saintly faces can get a break and not have to wait for us to lose it.
Shadow says: there is something in me, in you, that you are neglecting. It may be that anger you are so reluctant to release that you wait till it boils out without your permission. It may be that muse you keep locked in the attic, starving, because somebody told you that's silly, art and poetry, and get a real job why doncha?
Shadow gets short shrift. We use its dirty little projector to get in a huff about others' behaviors. Often that's a sign we wish we had more of those very ones, or are afraid we're really like that ourselves. Pay attention to Shadow's message. Homework: Take some time before Year's Day to inventory what you want to leave behind in 2016 and what you want to nurture in 2017. Plant some seeds. No, really. Get some Dixie cups and a few bulbs or beans or whatever and label them with your intention. See if you can manifest some growth. And if not in the cups, maybe in your own tick tick ticking away life.
Is it time to take out the good china you've had in safekeeping? Time to dust off the brushes and paints, to call that old friend, to pry away the albatross from your neck? Think it over and write it down.
January's just around the corner and we have work to do. This is the training camp. Get in the game. "People get ready, there's a train a'comin. Don't need no ticket, you just get on board."
See you on the brighter side,
Jana
