Happy winter solstice celebration to you and yours!
It is the most joyous time of year (besides flourishing with my flowers in the garden of course). This celebration is transcendent for me, and I thrive in the yin feminine moon energy that it entails.
Winter solstice arrives with welcoming arms Friday at 5:23 in the afternoon. Earth’s axis tilts the Northern Hemisphere the farthest away from the sun that it will be all year.
This time of year signifies so much.
The weather changes, the sun and the moon’s company changes, school and work schedules change, and even our health changes.
This years solstice is an unusually special event. There is a full moon, the December cold moon to be exact, that will arrive completely full at 12:49 pm on Saturday. This coincidence will not happen again until 2094. I don’t know about you but I will be 99 in 2094, so I don’t want to miss this inspiring energy, and you won’t either. When the solstice arrives the moon will still be a waxing gibbous, which signifies growth, progress and transcendence. When you gaze at the moon, on the longest night of the year, I encourage you to manifest growth and transcendence and progress in the dark cold time. We are all susceptible to the energy of the moon if you choose to tap into it. We as humans are made up of a vast amount of water. Our bodies are vessels, much like the valleys of the oceans, that ebb and flow in concordance with the moon. Some people who aren’t aware of this manifest (unknowingly) negativity because they are full of the moons yin energy. If you are aware of the energy that is available to you, you can do with it whatever you need.
I have a Gerbera Daisy plant that I’ve been nursing back to health over the past month. I took it out of the garden, to bring it inside, a little to late into the fall. It was covered in the first frost of the season when I dug it out of the ground. I’ve had it on my windowsill in my bedroom and I meditate with it sometimes. The past week a majority of the leaves were completely wilted and slowly turning brown. As pseudo-sciency as it sounds, I believe in talking to my plants, mostly when I water them. Some say that the C02 that you exhale is the reason it seems to create happier plants, especially those that live inside. Others believe that since plants are living things, they need energy and care from company and conversation. Either way, my manifestation of mindful care and love for my 3/4ths dead plant, resulted in something really freaking cool.
Yesterday, I checked on my plant and FOUR new flower buds have emerged out of the soil. Not only is my plant alive, but its flourishing. This is beating the odds of the grow cycle of this specific plant. Gerbera Daisy’s bloom in early spring, and into the summer cycling through re-blooming through early fall. I researched this plant and it said that it doesn’t survive well indoors and almost never blooms once in an indoor environment.
Maybe I am to give credit to the power of the moon, and the yin energy that it gives off, or maybe the way that I put it to good use.
The moment that you accept the power that the universe has to offer you and turn it into optimism and light in these dark cold months the more blooms you will find in your life. The higher you raise your heart space, the more enlightened your energy will be.
Before the days begin to slowly grow longer, there will be dark and cold nights. Don’t fall into the negativity that is societally associated with darkness. The dark is a beautiful time, and carries with it understanding and coziness. In order to thrive in the light, you must first believe in the power of the darkness. It’s all about balance.
I have recently become interested in a new meditation practice, Sun-gazing. This ancient practice was a tradition of numerous cultures and religions all over the world.
Sun-gazing traditions profess that looking towards the sun during its rising and setting hours of the day charges your energy center that lies up and down the meridians of the body. The soft early morning and late afternoon rays of the sun help to synchronize the vibrations of the pineal and pituitary gland, which achieves activation of the third eye; your inner wisdom.
As you sit and meditate with this sacred light, you reap all of its benefits that entail resetting your Circadian Rhythm in the winter months especially. The sun (light in general) is a sacred Zeitgeber. A Zeitgeber is a cue given by the environment in a light form that resets your internal clock. I plan to experiment with this practice and reap all of its benefits, and update you all on this new experience.
I will leave you with a powerful dharma poem on optimism today.
The eye can see what we have in common, or it can focus on what keeps us apart. The heart can feel what joins us, or replay its many tribulations. The tongue can praise the power in the wind, or warn against the storm. You can praise the sea, or instead dread the flood. The world is made of infinite variety- but fearing or labeling these differences keeps us from grace.
-From The Book Of Awakening
So, light your Yule logs, burn some candles, hang some tinsel, charge your crystals in the moonlight, and enjoy your solstice.
And always remember,
Namaste
-Finn
SoulWorks Yoga 