Happy winter solstice!

For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, Dec. 21 is when we get the shortest day in the sun’s light.

So many people are racing to get holiday shopping done, to get to one more party, or to get to their family gathering, that it sounds like many of us are locked in a battle with the clock.

Since scientists have not yet delivered on the flux capacitor, time is this finite resource that especially in December seems in short supply. We can’t go back in time. It only races ahead.

What if time isn’t actually linear?

As much as I love my Panda Planner and to-do lists, which treat time with respect because it’s too precious to be wasted … I am taken by another way to view time.

Time is not simply linear, racing by. It’s cyclical.

The sun rises in the east and sets in the west each day.
The moon waxes and wanes, with a full moon arriving every 28 days. Perhaps not coincidentally, women’s reproductive cycles follow the moon’s cycle.

Unless you live in an always-summer place like San Diego, seasons turn throughout the year, with spring’s blooms giving way to summer’s lushness then autumn’s closure before winter arrives.
Today.

Then it starts all over again.

From How Different Cultures Understand Time on Business Insider:

In a Buddhist culture (e.g., Thailand, Tibet), not only time but also life itself goes around in a circle. Whatever we plan, however we organize our particular world, generation follows generation; governments and rulers will succeed each other; crops will be harvested; monsoons, earthquakes and other catastrophes will recur; taxes will be paid; the sun and moon will rise and set; stocks and shares will rise and fall. Even the Americans will not change such events, certainly not by rushing things.

And Buddhists aren’t alone, according to the Ancient Hebrew Research Center:

The ancient Hebrews of the Bible and the people of the orient have always understood time, the past, present and future, as circular.

The darkest hour is just before dawn

When I’m sprinting through the over-scheduled holidays, ones of the ways I stay present is to realize it’s a finite season. If I skip our friends’ Hanukkah party, it’ll be a full year until we get another chance, so I get up for the game.

January is right around the corner, with its New Year’s resolutions of more gym time and eating better, maybe even dry January.

Then’s there’s the cycle that’s not marked by a calendar but by the heart.

I love summer, with its long sunny days and the abundant produce that overloads the tables at farmers market. I miss having tomato plants, when I could pick a bright red tomato and eat it while it was still warm.

But the tomatoes and basil and corn don’t just appear fully formed, they get their start as seeds buried in the dark, moist earth.

Similarly, many of us spend part of our lives in a dark place. Maybe it’s grieving a death or suffering heartache or disappointment.

To know love and happiness is to risk losing it. Losing a friend. Losing a job. Losing health. Losing a parent.

If you’re in a dark place this holiday season, I know how hard it is when every ad shows shiny, happy people living their best lives. You can feel like the only one.

You aren’t.

My wish for you is that you feel the promise of that seed, and that while it’s dark where you are now, you may feel the sun’s warmth helping you rise up out of it in due time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6g4IFJE4oc

My plan for myself on this shortest day of the year is to look into my heart, to think of it as a seed that is planted in the dark earth and ask it what it needs to grow.

What will act as the water and sunlight to help my heart bloom with love?

I welcome that light to help heal the wounds I have and to grow them into empathy for others on their own journeys.

How will you celebrate the days growing longer? How will you invite the light into your dark places?

Related blog posts:

• On Christmas without my mom’s gifts — OR: Who’s going to buy me a ceramic goose?
• Embracing all the emotions of the holidays
• Make real resolutions, not empty promises, this year
• Go deeper than your to-do list with your why list
• Comfort in, dump out when someone you care about is facing tough times