Wellness Wednesday: Welcoming Back The Light
We’re almost halfway through the dark days.
Let us rejoice, as we stumble through the grey and rainy times.
Humans have been marking solstices for untold eons, noting the rhythms of the days, years and the skies. Human 8.1 version is less in tune, distracted as we are by 24/7 light and food and other disruptors to these physical 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 three 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 working 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 them or refuse to manage them. It’s time to prepare for new beginnings, for the shedding of skins we’ve outgrown so we can move with grace and expansiveness when the time is right.
To do this: we become more still for a while, contemplating our history and our present before wriggling out of the old fit. An eye toward our history helps ensure we aren’t leaving anything too useful behind. That’s often what’s parading around as Shadow material. Which aspect is outdated, ready to shelve? The too-sweet persona with occasional rages? Maybe we want to learn to 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. The perfectionist who constantly feels Not Enough? Maybe we need to learn to accept being human, imperfect, and needing rest. Likely, it’s not amputation, but integration that’s needed.
Our Shadows get short shrift. We use its “dirty little projector”, as Jung said, to get in a huff about others’ behaviors. Often those huffs are a sign we wish we had more of those very ones, or are afraid we’re really like that ourselves. 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, a waste of time, and get a real job, why doncha?”
Homework: Take some time before Year’s Day to inventory what you want to leave behind in 2023 and what you want to nurture in 2024. 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.
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
Image by storyset on Freepik
