The Winter Solstice is newly passed in these northern climes and dawn arrives earlier in minute increments. Those who relish even one, two, three minutes of expanding light in these wakening days in the midst of Winter are exhaling a sigh of relief and scrawl the word “hope” on moist interior windows. As a relisher of the long, dark nights of Winter, I continue to sigh into the dark and appreciate the howl of the wind and rain as it beats against my windows while I sleep. That wind and rain drifting into my dreams…Salmon swimming in puddles going to…where? My dream did not say. Salmon, a powerful totem to the indigenous people of the Land where I live and to people of my Celtic ancestry. Water…a place for both inner solace and movement for my own transformations. A snippet of a dream that lingers days after waking. And I am comfortable with not needing to “know” what it means. Simply paying attention.
Autumn Newsletter: Harvesting Rest
In recent years, my local climate has not followed the usual patterns of weaving cool weather into night, to leaves surrendering their green into startling reds and yellows, and flowers dropping to mulch into soil as autumn approaches. Oh, it arrives in some form, but a bit chagrined and with a folder full of explanations. So I was happy, yes happy, to don my rain gear as the calendar officially announced the equinox in my beloved Pacific NW and the Nature that surrounds me magically turned on cue. As one who has lived all but the first four years of her life in this region of the world, the shift in seasons is one way I navigate the spiral of my being. The harvest of rest this season offers, with its lengthening nights and bundling of my body for warmth, reminds me of all the moments I’ve forgotten in the chaos of summer about SLOW TIME. Slow time, something I lean into with more grace as I age. Stepping away from the demands of external clocks (though they still seems to dictate more of my life than I desire.)
