At the solstice, our sun appears in the same position at noon for three days as we stretch ourselves to the limit of our own separateness. As we pull away, she stands still- waiting while we turn our gaze beyond the blackness of space, eyes open in the eternal night. A cosmic trust, a dance.
Winter gives us permission to drift. It reminds us that there is a good and right place for exploring the dark. It imprints us with a cosmic memory of returning.
The solstice reminds us the darkness is not empty. It is not unforgiving. It is not a punishment.
The darkness is a magical space of belonging and inner knowing. It is the liminal presence honored by this newsletter’s namesake. The magical darkness is the within space.
It is the womb where light first begins. It is the seed.
It is our first home where we are reminded that one small candle at the center of a table is enough.
It feels good and right to spin on this axis of time. To take enormous space. To stretch far away and to return again. To stand in place with the sun for 3 days. To shift my attention to the new year. To do this in my room in Philadelphia. Like a plant. No, like a human remembering what it means to exist in a world of cosmic timing, sitting beside a plant.
The solstice celebrates a path drawn by the many who have walked in this darkness. It feels good and right to spend this time resting at our shared altar of light.
May you offer a prayer
of returning to
the sun in the sky,
yourself and others.
on loop
the birds outside.