Winter Solstice Preparation
WINTER SOLSTICE from Colette Baron-Reid
This year, we are being gifted with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. For the first time in almost 800 years, Jupiter and Saturn will align in the Winter Solstice sky to become what is known as “The Christmas Star!” Here’s how you can prepare yourself to celebrate this season:
Tale Old As Time… Humanity has been celebrating the turning of the earth and the shift of seasons from our earliest days. The Winter Solstice is a point of change for us, a marker of time passing, and a celebration of both the gifts of the darkness and the return of the sunlight. Both darkness and daylight are critical to nature, and to our inner and outer growth. Life cannot exist without both, without the moon and the sun! The darkness offers rest, dreams, an exploration of our shadow side, while the sun brings warmth, a reawakening of life, and hope for another day. Wholeness requires that we honor them both.
Understanding the Darkness
- Meditate on what the darkness means to you, and the gifts it brings. When our sight is diminished, as it is when darkness falls, we must rely on our hearing, our intuition, our senses of touch, smell and taste. We also have the opportunity to turn within, to “hibernate” in our cocoons of warmth as we wait for the sunlight to return.
- Explore the concept of rest. Without some quiet deep rest, we would have no dreams, no growth, no gestation period. Rest might look different for all of us, but it always involves disconnecting from the pressures to “produce.”
Journal about what rest feels like to you. What gifts can you find in the Dark Harvest of night? Start dreaming about what you want to create and invite into your life in 2021. Consider what you want to leave behind at the end of 2020.
Understanding the Light
- Meditate on what sunlight means to you, and the gifts it brings. With the return of the longer daylight, we’re reminded of the life force within every living being. I love this quote from NASA: “The Sun warms our seas, stirs our atmosphere, generates our weather patterns, and gives energy to the growing green plants that provide the food and oxygen for life on Earth.” With the growing daylight, our spirits and energy rise!
- Explore the concept of light. The Sun is the source of all energy. We appreciate its power more when we’ve been without it! Light candles or turn on the holiday lights that may be in your home this season. Let it be a reminder of the coming return of the Sun, and the gifts it brings. Journal about the connection of daylight and hope for you. Start dreaming about what you want to create and invite into your life in 2021.