My Solstice Prayer 2023

Snow!

The beauty of Winter Solstice is courage in itself. It is the courage to know that to be new is not necessarily going to be accepted by those expecting the commonplace. … a new you is ready … that will carry you through the new cycle. … Solstice is the time when you give up what you have and accept what is being born as the new power within you, the awareness within you, the new person within you. Gregge Tiffen (Winter Solstice: The Christmas Story)

As I ease into the quiet of Solstice Eve and Solstice Day, I begin to contemplate what of the old needs to fall away, and I start to imagine who might I be in this new cycle. As I sit in the early morning quiet, my prayer for this sacred day when Heaven and Nature sing in harmony and for the cycle ahead begins to emerge…

May I let go of whatever stories of separation remain a part of me so that I can live more fully into the truth of Oneness.

May my critical eye be only a tool for discernment, not judgements of others.

May I grow in my capacity to act from compassion, calling forth compassion first, releasing judgement and doubt, and recognizing where compassion is needed.

May I listen deeply to my heart, to others, to Nature, and to guidance from Spirit.

May I have the maturity to live in the kind of peaceful world that I desire.

May I let go of childish ways and embrace all life with child-like wonder.

May I know peace and may I BE peace in my walk through our chaotic world.

May you find moments of peace in the midst of the world’s noise and busyness to release the old and step into your creation of the new. I appreciate these wise words from Max Ehrmann, penned in 1927, which seems so relevant almost 100 years later (listen here).

Nestled in the Snow …

Honoring the Veins & Arteries of Our World

The Rio Grande River Near South Fork, Colorado

Rivers are the veins and arteries of our world, and they are essential to all life. In the U.S., we depend on our 3.5 million miles of rivers for our drinking water and the food we eat. Rivers provide crucial habitat for fish and wildlife, opportunities for recreation, and spiritual and cultural connections for us, our families, and our communities. Rivers make life possible, yet we are losing them. Amy Souers Kober, American Rivers (www.americanrivers.org)

Heading out early on the morning of the autumnal equinox to explore and honor the headwaters of the Rio Grande River, little did I know that the following day was World Rivers Day. Recently engaged in global activity to honor fresh waters, I simply wanted to get to know this river at the place where she begins her long (and oft interrupted) journey to the Gulf of Mexico.

Enroute to the headwaters, high in the San Juan Mountains 130 miles or so away, we crossed the Rio Grande numerous times, stopping at a couple of particularly beautiful Colorado State Wildlife Areas to touch the River below her genesis point. Our day of awe and beauty had only just begun.

Arriving at the Rio Grande Reservoir, more beauty to behold, beauty that touched my heart and brought feelings of deep gratitude for this River, for all Rivers, for all Life. During our slow meandering of the area, the sense of what it might have been in the days when indigenous peoples lived there in harmony with the River, the Earth, Life. Before my European ancestors brought what they believed was ‘progress’, what I now hold as colonization and control that has led us to feel we are separate from one another and from Nature.

 I think of the Lakota phrase “Mní wičhóni” (“Water is life”) that came powerfully into our consciousness as the protest anthem from Standing Rock. I remember that it also has a spiritual meaning rooted in Indigenous world views. Water not only sustains Life, Water is also sacred.

A key element in honoring the waters is to ask and to listen.  In doing so recently with rivers in the eastern United States, I have ‘heard’ their sorrow for the division and bloodshed of the past and their wish that this be healed. And I have sensed the rivers’ desire to flow freely.

In our culture of control, we view water on the move as disruptive and thus needing to be controlled. In nomadic times Rivers and humans moved freely in what I imagine to be a dance. ‘The River will rise soon … we need to move to higher ground.’ Listening to Nature and dancing with her. Today we demean such lifestyle choices. Countries, political boundaries, ownership have fenced us in to the ways of separation.

How shall we become free? How shall Life and Nature regain their natural freedom? Musings for now. Questions with mere hints of possibility. A call for greater awareness. For honoring. For asking. For listening. For gratitude. And not just out in the wild, beauty of Nature, but right here with each turn of the tap. Ask and allow the water to inform. Remember the sacredness. Respect and respond.

Marshy Headwaters of the Rio Grande River

BEING: The Work Within

Fall Beauty in the Neighborhood

Our greatest contributions to life are not found in what we do, but rather in who and how we BE in the walk of our doing.

I feel winter slowing creeping in here in the Sangres. Cooler temperatures brought the turning of leaves, some now beginning to let go and make their way to the ground in gentle autumn breezes. The season’s first freezing temperature was felt this week. The abundant harvests of summer fruits and vegetables shifts to the harvests of fall: apples, potatoes, winter squash, the makings of warm, nourishing soups.

Although I begin to feel the pull within to the slow, quiet, inward time that winter brings, there are tasks to complete before winter weather settles in. She’s only flirting with us now, gently reminding me that it is time for the baskets of geraniums to be tended and prepared to come inside and for the kindling box to be filled. There are shutters to paint and reinstall and winter supplies to be purchased and stored. Yes, there are tasks to do.

Sidelined from those tasks for several days last week, my energy was redirected to healing a shoulder that called for my attention using the language of pain. As I engaged in the process my first actions were directed toward relief, then to correcting whatever was out of alignment and opening the flow of any blocked energy.

I felt deep gratitude for the Chinese herbs I have on hand and for the local healing professionals who worked me into their schedules. As the pain eased energy was freed up to engage curiosity. I’d noticed a pattern – same pain, same time last year. Hmm…what might I need to see, to explore, to understand? In the questioning I was opened to an exploration of old ancestral habits and patterns of the women in my lineage – mother, grandmothers, great grands, and beyond. The insights brought some understanding and a desire to more deeply explore. That will be part of my winter’s ‘work’.

Right on time the information found its way to me and Muse to support the process. Cycles cycle in just that way when I am open, observant, curious, and allow them to emerge. I was reminded yet again of the importance of tending to who and how I BE in the process of doing whatever is before me. Muse suggests that the choices of Being are ultimately far more important that what we choose to do.

The work of Being is an inside job that reflects wide and deep into the world. I was reminded of this by the words I read last night shortly before making my way to dreamtime, words from a book that I pulled off the shelf as the result of a conversation earlier this week. Curiosity, synchronicity, allowing, cycles, life.

The outer work can never be small

if the inner work is great.

And the outer work can never be great

if the inner work is small.

Meister Eckhart 

Our world – humanity and our precious planet home – need the best of our Being now. We need to not simply understand, but to know and live the interconnectedness, the Oneness of all that is. I’ll be tuning in to several sessions of Humanity’s Team’s 2022 Global Oneness Summit, Birthing a New World. Because indeed we are birthing a new world and her nature will be determined by who we BE. https://www.humanitysteam.org/Global-Oneness-Summit

And Beauty in the Mountains

ALL We Need IS Love

Snow! On the Labyrinth Bell

All you need is love
All you need is love
All you need is love, love
Love is all you need … John Lennon - The Beatles (click here for a 3 minute ride down memory lane)

As I move beyond the hustle and bustle of what we call the ‘holiday season’, I’m present to the pleasure and satisfaction that came with choosing to engage in holiday activities with others more than I usually do. I’m grateful for the opportunities to gather and share with friends. And as this fifth day of the new calendar year dawns, I’m also present to a deep pull to go within, to withdraw, bear-like, into a state of torpor. To rest. To hear with clarity the whispers of my heart, a heart that is calling for trimming the sails and making course corrections to more fully align the activities and choices in life with that which I say I value.

The Muse muffles a chuckle, knowing this will necessitate investing more time in sitting quietly, resting, napping. It will require that I let go of trying to control the flow of life and that I build muscle to allow changes and projects to flow in their time, divine time, not my time. The Muse’s chuckle gives way to a gentle embrace, a reminder that Muse nudges and wisdom are available 24/7. Like Zadie Byrd, the Muse is oh so patient with my humanness.

Although I feel this pull to draw inward every winter, this year seems different. While much of our contemporary Western culture declares the ‘holiday season’ over when the new year is celebrated, other cultures – those more in tune with Nature and her cycles – dedicate this time to inner journeys, to rest, to envisioning what wants to come forward. They rest and gather within that which will be needed to burst forth in spring. They listen to the heart whispers and invite the heart to have its full voice.

 And that is what I’m easing into in the early minutes of this new year: investing more time in contemplation and consideration, being with the stars and all of Nature to discover what wants to unfold, to jettison that which no longer serves, and to gather what I need for the journey ahead.

While discovery, jettisoning, and gathering will require me to breakthrough more layers of my own habitual muscle memory and to develop stronger immunity to the pull of a culture that wants me to conform, the deep potency and possibility that I feel for humanity and our planet home, Mother Earth, in this year provide sustainable, renewable fuel for the journey.

Although this time finds our world chaotic, we need not be in chaos with it. My choices, indeed, our choices, minute by minute in the remaining 519,120 minutes (more or less) of 2022, hold the potential to contribute positively to the new that is unfolding as the old falls away.

In the quiet time and in the active time each day, I’m deepening trust in the voice of my heart to shine light on the path and to support me step by step in the uncharted waters ahead aiming to expand my capacity to BE the love I want to see in the world. For indeed, love is all we need.

New Years Snow on the Mountains

Easing into 2022 with Rest

A White Christmas Labyrinth!

How beautiful it is to do nothing, and then rest afterwards. Proverb

The only real rest comes when you’re alone with God. Rumi

As I began to update what has become my ‘Auld Lang Syne’ final post of the year, the online countdown clock indicated that it’s 2 days, 14 hours, 41 minutes, 56 seconds until the new year is rung in here in the Colorado Rockies. But, hey, ‘who’s counting?’ wonders the Muse.

As was the case at the end of 2020, many – perhaps most – await the turning of the clock to 2022 with bated breath, wishing to bid adieu to another tumultuous year. We want to turn the page. We long to dive deeply into the fresh start that began with the Solstice promise of our personal newness and culminates as we replace our 2021 calendars with new pages of promise and possibility that the coming year has the potential to bring forth.

It is, as always, up to us – individually and collectively – to bring promise, possibility, and potential to fruition. As sure as the sun’s light is returning day by day here in the northern hemisphere, we will have opportunities to do just that in the hours, days, weeks, and months ahead. What if we trusted the opportunities to come forth at just the right divine time rather than pushing to ‘make’ them happen?

While this year held much tragedy and darkness, lights of love continued to be shined in dark corners needing our attention and care.  May we each be a part of shining the light of love in all the days ahead. May we tap into the countless sources of light available beyond the chaos of the mainstream and its ways. May we receive whatever light we need as we add our unique rays to loving constellations of light and life.

Although the onset of a new year signals the end of the holiday season in our culture, Winter has only just begun. The dark, the cold invites me inward (more snow would help the cause!). The Muse smiles a happy, knowing smile. The season that began fewer than 10 days ago has a 12-week run before it gives way to Spring. Yet our cultural habit of a new year is to make plans and spring into action with goals and commitments to DO more.

What if we took more time for rest and renewal as Nature does in the season of cold? Inward to rest, to renew. Inward to commune with the sacred and to gather all that is necessary to burst forth in Spring. While certainly there is life and livelihood to maintain, jobs to go to, businesses to tend, political action to be voiced, stories to be told, I wonder how the world might be if we began the calendar year in greater alignment with Nature?

What might be possible for us individually and collectively if our first goal for the new year was intending rest and renewal of body, mind, and spirit?

As I reflect on saying ‘Goodbye’ and refrain from saying ‘good riddance’, my year end reflections first written at the end of 2016 seem as apropos (with a few additions) today as they did five years ago.

At year end, we tend to look back on joys, sorrows, what we accomplished, where we may have fallen short. Hopefully our review list includes acknowledging all that we discovered about ourselves and learned from the opportunities and events life presented.

As 2021 ends, many will breathe a sigh of relief that it is finally over along with a breath of hope for better days in the year ahead.  The world we live in is chaotic and uncertain. It IS! Those who put attention on that world forgetting that it is the world we live IN, NOT the world we are OF may look ahead with dread or fear.

That need not be.

Within each of us is a seed of understanding who we truly are. Nurturing that seed grows our faith in our capacity to be resilient in the face of the world’s chaos. In this year ahead, I have a sense that we will need to tap into our spiritual strength in ways we may not have done before.

This seed of faith is within us all. It is not faith in anything outside of us. Rather it is faith in who we are, each as an individual, integral part of an intelligent Universe. It is a reminder that life is so much more than we experience and observe in our daily routines.

As you ring in 2022, I invite you to join me in nourishing your seed of faith in each of the 365 days ahead and to remember how important your presence and your ray of light is at this moment on the planet.

With that intention top of mind and heart, I’ll be participating in a global event 7 Days of Rest and Sacred Renewal during the first week of the new year. The event’s introductory words drew me in with their reminder of the power of intention and clarity and the potent possibility that alignment and collective action call forth:

7 Days of Rest is an annual, open co-creative event inviting individuals and groups around the world to initiate and join local and online events for the healing and thriving of Earth and all her inhabitants. During the first 7 Days of 2022, we unite in seeding the New Year with a sacred field of intention and blessing for a thriving world for all of Life.​ Together we co-create a collective space for renewing ourselves and our sacred bonds with each other and with all of Life. Through rest, deep listening, wisdom sharing and compassionate action we amplify the emerging global culture of peace, health, cooperation and wise governance.

I’m deeply grateful for this discovery/resource (the website -click here - is chock full of nourishing offerings daily!) and I’m looking forward to diving in daily with each of the daily themes. Join me in whatever way best fits your schedule, your life, and your intentions for the year ahead.

Happy New Year!

I hope you’ll join me in participating in this global gathering!

Preparing for Solstice 2021

A Blustery Morning and SNOW on the Peaks

All of heaven and all of earth coordinate at the Winter Solstice. Gregge Tiffen (Winter Solstice: The Christmas Story)

What I would exhort you to, what I would give as a gift to you, what I would lay down a soul for, would be for your awareness to recognize that this is a personal event for your life. It is the time that has been set up on this planet for you and Heaven to be with each other without interference. Gregge Tiffen (The Winter Solstice: Giving To Yourself – December, 2007)

The Muse is challenged to settle me down to focus this blustery morning. With sustained winds exceeding 15 miles per hour and gusts into the 50-mph range, Zadie Byrd and I were challenged to get in a short walk so she could take care of her morning business. It’s not a day for walking in the woods or grounding myself with a labyrinth walk. One close call with a falling tree is enough for this life.

I have other year-end distractions as well, opportunities and projects that warrant my attention and a promise to myself to finalize personal decisions around financial and health matters – the paperwork our legal system demands in order for our wishes to be followed. So, the Muse suggested we revisit Solstice posts past and see what might be relevant to where I find myself today. Good call Muse!

Six years ago, amidst a community controversy in which I was involved I wrote this:  I’ve felt out of sync with the season and out of sorts with myself.  I want to stop. I want to stop not just for a few minutes to catch my breath, center myself and move on to the next task or conversation, but I want to STOP and BE the winter. Quiet. Still. Peaceful. Yes, yes, YES!

I continued: My time for that will come. I feel her on the horizon. Until then, there are ‘miles to go before I sleep’ in these last days of autumn before that moment when heaven and earth synchronize at the Winter Solstice. I know without a doubt that I will be there.

I know too that I alone am responsible for choosing how I walk through the tasks along those miles. I choose calm, confident, clear, kind as my foundation. These are grounded in love.  My choice is simple; implementation, not always easy. Often when I’m challenged, fear interrupts and invites me to its prickly path of tension, harshness, unkind words spoken and not. Too much of the world is on that path. I don’t want to be a part of that crowd. And so, I pause.

The divisiveness and angst in our world have intensified seemingly exponentially in the six years since I wrote those words. So too have the opportunities for personal growth and evolution, individually and collectively. It is on those opportunities that I want to focus my attention this Solstice time.

Just as I did then, I turn to Gregge Tiffen’s writings about this sacred time. I find this message perfect to remind me of the choices I can make now and moment to moment. Before my time of winter solitude and beyond winter into the spring:

Prelude (Winter Solstice: The Christmas Story)

There is nothing I can give you which you have not got; but there is much, very much, that while I cannot give it, you can take. No Heaven can come to us, unless our hearts find rest in today.

Take Heaven

No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present little instant.

Take Peace

The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach, is joy. There is radiance and glory in the darkness could we but see, and to see, we have only to look, I beseech you,

Look!

In the quiet there is tranquility. May your life move and radiate in that unity and your heart sing the hymn of peace to all mankind.

And so, at this time, I greet you not quite as the world sends greetings, but with profound esteem and with prayer that for now and forever the day breaks, and the shadows flee away.

I need not wait for the Solstice to take Heaven, to take Peace, and to Look at the radiance in the darkness within and without. I take them now and allow the potency of this time to fill me. Yes, my time for the quiet of Solstice is on the horizon. That is my time to empty. That is my time to embrace the seeds of the new. To be receptive. 

In the Christmas Story, we are told that the inn was full. And, yet a receptive place for the birth was found. So it is for each of us. We too need to empty and make ourselves receptive to the new.  Solstice is a time to declare one cycle complete, making way for another to begin. It is a time to embrace the realm of spirit and turn our backs on the material world, if only for a brief time. It is a time to bless and release all who have crossed your path in this cycle, knowing that those who are meant to return will be there in the new one.

And, perhaps most important of all, it is time to let go of who we were in the cycle that is completing.  The ‘you’ of that cycle is complete as well. And a new you of your design and making awaits.

As our planet celebrates her birthday, let us honor her by taking time to reflect this gift of the time when heaven and nature sing as one. May we each sing along in our own unique and harmonious way. JOY to Our World … WE Have Come!

… Just Sayin’…

Blessed Solstice 2020

Sunset on the Labyrinth in the Woods Out Back

Winter Solstice is the time when you give up what you have and accept what is being born as the new power within you, the new awareness within you and the new person within you. (Gregge Tiffen, December 2019 newsletter)

All of heaven and all of earth coordinate at the Winter Solstice. Gregge Tiffen (Winter Solstice: The Christmas Story)

I’ve been feeling the energy of the Solstice for several days. Monday’s New Moon felt especially powerful here in the snowy woods, almost as if it were the Solstice day.  I was called to walk the labyrinth in the early morning cold and again as the sun began to set across the valley. I’m walking it daily and taking long slow walks with Zadie Byrd in the afternoons. Mild weather of a week ago has given way to winter weather. Eight plus inches of snow over the weekend and another inch overnight Monday. The beauty and the quiet that snow brings are tonic for the tumultuous frenzy that the world seems to be spinning in. Grateful! I am THAT!

Winter Solstice is a time of natural transformation, newness that comes forth with or without our awareness. It is the time when our receptivity is heightened in consciousness. Is it any wonder that with fewer hours of daylight, we are drawn inside into our homes and into ourselves at this time of year?

Solstice is the birthday of the Planet. It was celebrated as such with reverence and respect in ancient times by our ancestors who lived in close harmony with the Planet’s rhythms.

Solstice is the time of completion and of new beginnings. The old cycle is done. We are presented with the opportunity to declare completion and move on with awareness of the seeds of newness planted inside. A new ‘you’ with its potential to bring wondrous change in the cycle ahead is ready. Are you willing to claim it?

In keeping with my understanding of ancient traditions, once again this year I will take time at Solstice to create a personal ‘silent night’, a time to harmonize my rhythms to those of Mother Earth. With love and gratitude I let go of everything from the year behind and acknowledge the seeds of newness inside. I invite you to create quiet time amidst the tensions of the world outside of you and the hustle and bustle of the season to do the same.

A good place to start is by harmonizing with nature. If you are blessed as I am to live in nature’s beauty, take a walk. Observe and honor the rhythms of nature, whether the slow steady growth of a tree or the daily cycles of ocean tides. This year the planets will offer quite a show as Jupiter and Saturn come together and appear as one bright star in the night sky on Solstice.  

If nature is not outside your door, then sit quietly and imagine your favorite peaceful place in nature. Feel yourself in that place and allow its rhythms to bring you the quiet peace of the season.

In that atmosphere embrace an attitude of gratefulness. Let go of everything that has come to you in the cycle ending. Empty and prepare space for the new. Let go of not only what doesn’t serve or suit you, of those things you consider ‘wrong’ or ‘bad’, but of everything: every attitude, your wants and desires, your fears, your hopes, your stories about the events of the year ending, the people in your life.

Finally, when you are ready (perhaps after only a few moments, perhaps a few hours), evoke the sound of newness with the declaration “I am new”.  Speak it boldly.  Be still and feel this newness. This is the place where heaven and earth come together in you, as you. The place where ‘heaven and nature sing’. The new you is ready to meet, greet and receive the gifts of the new cycle.  On this dark and silent night, let us sing with the angels and call forth love and light and peace. Then, in all the days ahead, let us BE the love, light, and peace that is our true nature.

May the blessings of your unique newness follow you into and throughout the year ahead!

A Protective Blanket of Fresh Snow Cradles Grasses and Seedlings and Mother Earth Herself

Blessed Solstice 2019

Ringing in Winter

Winter Solstice is the time when you give up what you have and accept what is being born as the new power within you, the new awareness within you and the new person within you. (Gregge Tiffen, December 2019 newsletter)

All of heaven and all of earth coordinate at the Winter Solstice. Gregge Tiffen (Winter Solstice: The Christmas Story)

Winter Solstice is a time of natural transformation, newness that comes forth with or without our awareness. It is the time when our receptivity is heightened in consciousness. Is it any wonder that with fewer hours of daylight, we are drawn inside into our homes and into ourselves at this time of year?

Solstice is the birthday of the Planet. It was celebrated as such with reverence and respect in ancient times by our ancestors who lived in close harmony with the Planet’s rhythms.

Solstice is the time of completion and of new beginnings. The old cycle is done. We are presented with the opportunity to declare completion and move on with awareness of the seeds of newness planted inside. A new ‘you’ with its potential to bring wondrous change in the cycle ahead is ready. Are you willing to claim it?

In keeping with my understanding of ancient traditions, once again this year I will take time at Solstice to create a personal ‘silent night’, a time to harmonize my rhythms to those of Mother Earth. With love and gratitude I let go of everything from the year behind and acknowledge the seeds of newness inside. I invite you to create quiet time amidst the hustle and bustle of the season to do the same.

A good place to start is by harmonizing with nature. If you are blessed as I am to live in nature’s beauty, take a walk. Observe and honor the rhythms of nature, whether the slow steady growth of a tree or the daily cycles of ocean tides. If nature is not outside your door, then sit quietly and imagine your favorite peaceful place in nature. Feel yourself in that place and allow its rhythms to bring you the quiet peace of the season.

In that atmosphere embrace an attitude of gratefulness. Let go of everything that has come to you in the cycle ending. Empty and prepare space for the new. Let go of not only what doesn’t serve or suit you, of those things you consider ‘wrong’ or ‘bad’, but of everything: every attitude, your wants and desires, your fears, your hopes, your stories about the events of the year ending, the people in your life.

Finally, when you are ready (perhaps after only a few moments, perhaps a few hours), evoke the sound of newness with the declaration “I am new”.  Speak it boldly.  Be still and feel this newness. This is the place where heaven and earth come together in you, as you. The place where ‘heaven and nature sing’. The new you is ready to meet, greet and receive the gifts of the new cycle. 

May the blessings of your unique newness follow you into and throughout the year ahead!

*My understanding and celebration of Solstice, while it is my own interpretation, comes primarily from the work of Gregge Tiffen. You can learn more about Gregge’s work at www.g-systems.com. And, you can purchase from his collected works, including his telling of Winter Solstice – The Christmas Story, on www.amazon.com

Snowy Labyrinth in the Woods Out Back

10 Days of Solstice - 2019

A Call to Go Inside from the Snowy Sangres

All of heaven and all of earth coordinate at the Winter Solstice. … Regardless of all the stories and traditions, this is a personal event of your life. It is the time that has been set up for you and Heaven to be with each other without interference. Gregge Tiffen (Winter Solstice: The Christmas Story)

Become totally empty; Quiet the restlessness of the mind; Only then will you witness everything unfolding from emptiness. Lao Tzu

In 2013 when I wrote my first Solstice blog post, I used the above quote from Lao Tzu and mused:

In a noisy, full world, I wonder how it would be to live from the place of allowing everything to emerge from emptiness. I wonder not just how it would be, but how I might create this experience more often in my life. And, I dream about the world we will co-create as more of us take this path.

In a noisy, full world, it’s no wonder that emptiness has a bad rap. “Emptiness as a human condition is a sense of generalized boredom, social alienation and apathy,” says the Wikipedia article on the topic, highlighting emptiness as a “negative, unwanted” condition.

This Western view seems to ignore that, on some level, all creation starts from emptiness. A great novel starts with a blank computer screen (or piece of paper). Great art starts from a blank canvas. A fabulous soup starts with an empty soup pot. The planet was formed in emptiness at precisely the right place and the right time.

Okay, it’s quite a leap from a blank canvas to the formation of our home, planet Earth. But at this time of Solstice, I’m reminded that this is a time to celebrate the birth of the planet. In the deep stillness, quiet, and dark of winter, I’m choosing emptiness as a focal point of my celebration.

As I began to use Gregge Tiffen’s work more in my life and in these weekly musings, I noticed how easy it is to get caught up in the world and how the world can fill us up with its seeming demands. Emptiness emerged anew:

It’s all too easy to find ourselves hooked in the hustle and bustle of seasonal activities and ‘wrapping things up for the year’. We’ve forgotten that which we know deep inside: this is our time to re-calibrate from the inside out. And, to do so we must empty, release, let go and recognize the wisdom that done is done.

All too often we fear being empty – even for a brief moment in time. Emptiness seems like a strange word to ascribe to the season of winter holidays with their bright lights, joyful sounds, and festivities to match. And, yet, giving yourself the gift of emptying is an important part of being prepared to receive the new that is sure to come as the sun begins her journey back to the north. After all, the full glass cannot receive more wine.

In the Christmas Story, we are told that the inn was full. And, yet a receptive place for the birth was found. So it is for each of us. We too need to empty and make ourselves receptive to the new. Solstice is a time to declare one cycle complete, making way for another to begin. It is a time to embrace the realm of spirit and turn our backs on the material world, if only for a brief time. It is a time to bless and release all who have crossed your path in this cycle, knowing that those who are meant to return will be there in the new one. And, perhaps most important of all, it is time to let go of who we were in the cycle that is completing. The ‘you’ of that cycle is complete as well. And a new you of your design and making awaits.

In these 10 days leading to the December 21 Solstice, I invite you to join me for a few minutes or more each day to let go of the noise and busyness and demands of the world. Let’s (re)discover how that feels and what possibilities emerge. As our planet prepares to celebrate her birthday, let us honor her by taking time to reflect the gift of heaven and nature singing as one. May we take time to empty ourselves of the world and its chaos and then sing along in our own unique and harmonious way.

This Prelude from Gregge Tiffen’s ‘Winter Solstice: The Christmas Story’ is a beautiful reminder of the choices we can make now in winter’s quiet celebration and beyond winter into spring. May it support you to ease into the sacredness of this time - http://cindyreinhardt.com/blog/prelude-to-solstice-2018

The Snowy Labyrinth in the Woods Out Back

Pearls to Ponder

The Quiet of Snow Is Upon Us

We live in the midst of abundance, of universal space, and we receive abundance as a result of conviction in the universal Law of Life. The universal law of life is continuity. … ‘Abundance in the making’ is making new discoveries regarding that which already exists. Gregge Tiffen (Faith is Abundance in the Making – Winter Solstice, 2008)

This week finds me moving in several directions, all forward. I’m preparing to travel and writing this post in advance. I’m engaged in a project with a colleague – keeping it gently moving until we launch an intense focused effort and participating in a community meeting.

In the throes of this activity I’m also moving into the quiet, contemplative darkness of winter and looking ahead to the sacred Winter Solstice. While contemplation has become an important part of my daily life in all seasons, winter offers a magic that seems to deepen the meaning of what I discover. Winter brings a soft curiosity and encourages me to consider manifesting experiences where I will experiment applying those discoveries.

And, winter brings opportunities in the form of challenges. Winter weather can impact the best laid plan. I’m especially aware of that as a winter storm moves in, offering the opportunity to accept what is and relinquish any illusion of control I think I may have. Go with the flow! Allow things turn out as they will and trust that to be in divine perfection.

Doing so is most always easier said than done, especially when travelling.  If I allow them to, reservations and schedules for lodging and transportation become a mother lode of stress and restrict my sense of flexibility and ease. Likewise with plans made for gatherings with family and friends.

Navigating this snowy travel time, I’ve found support in some pearls of wisdom. I offer them for you to ponder as you enter what, for many, can be a hectic, demanding time. As we move deeper into winter, I invite you to give yourself the gift of time and energy for quiet contemplation to consider how you want to be with life.

… Nonetheless, we walk around constantly trying to control and determine what will happen next … No wonder there’s so much tension, anxiety and fear. Each of us actually believes that things should be the way we want them, instead of being the natural result of all the forces of creation. … There is so much evidence that life does quite well on its own. The planets stay in orbit, tiny seeds grow into giant trees … a single fertilized cell grows into a beautiful baby. … they are being done by the incomprehensible perfection of life itself. All these amazing events, and countless more, are being carried out by forces of life that have been around for billions of years – the very same forces that we are consciously pitting our will against on a daily basis. If the natural unfolding of the process of life can create and take care of the entire universe, is it really reasonable for us to assume that nothing good will happen unless we force it to?  Michael A. Singer (The Surrender Experiment – my journey into life’s perfection)

So what if road conditions prevent or delay my travel? So what if I don’t sleep in the hotel before my early morning flight? So what if I miss my flight?  So what if I feel guided to leave early and miss a gathering? Is it possible, dare I probable, that the Universe, wiser than I, has something better in store? How can I live more powerfully from that place?

Faith is conviction that relinquishing control is in your best interest. Trust is the act of conviction that faith will not harm you … that your consciousness is operating by universal direction. Gregge Tiffen (Faith is Abundance in the Making – Winter Solstice, 2008)

Winter Contemplation -Not Just for Humans - Luke December 2015