Winter Solstice 2022: let go, let be, let rise
/At Yule, the winter solstice, we are invited to lean into the ease of the dark – to winter. Which is to say to allow, to consciously relax any grasping to what we are attaching to about the year past or approaching. To be instead of do – to do without attachment. To move with the season, slowly, deeply, without hurry or clinging.
One of the reasons the winter holidays can feel so agitating is that the rush and bustle and mad purchasing pressure is the opposite of what this time of the year is asking of us, is inviting us into. So maybe the best we can do is find pockets of respite, of leaning into the dark and letting the winter do its work on us, in us, with us. Or maybe we can find whole hours, whole days or nights, of allowing ourselves to move at the pace of the slowing season, to breathe deeply into the dark within and sense where it is connected to the dark without, the sweet and gentling and lush with possibility dark.
It is of course not true that nothing is happening in this season, though it resists our socialized capitalistic concepts of productivity. But as always, how we move is as important or more important than the movement itself. So on this holiday, we practice open manifestation, bringing about our truest desires by making space and allowing, rather than inventing or making.
On a piece of paper, divide a circle into three sections.
In one, write “let go.” In this space, you will place language, images, representations of what you will let be released, what wants or needs to clear, dissipate, be relinquished.
In another, write “let be.” In this space, you will place language, images, representations of what you will simply allow to exist, what wants to simmer, hum, hang out at the edges, marinate, brew.
In the third, write “let rise.” In this space, you will place language, images, representations of what you will allow to come into existence, what you will make space for, let bloom or emerge or come into focus and into relationship with your life.
At each segment, get very quiet. Still your body, lengthen your breath, feel the dark within echoed in the dark without, the dark without echoing in the dark within. Feel a sense of curiosity about what to let go, let be, let arise and let that curiosity lead.
Once you’ve filled in the three sections, pull a card at each, asking what can be your winter guide as you let go, let be, and let rise. Draw a fourth card to lay at the center of the circle to be your key, to lead you in the synthesis of these forces as we move into the dark of the year.
Close the activity in any way that feels right to you.
Maybe you want to visualize each segment coming to life, seeing what will go, go; seeing what will be, be; seeing what will rise, rise.
Or maybe you want to stand at each segment make a gesture or movement for each; a letting go gesture, a letting be gesture, a letting rise gesture.
In any case, when you feel it complete, feel into a sense of gratitude to the dark, the slowing cold, the body that carries you through it, the spirit that enlivens that body, the divine that is always around and inside and everywhere with us and in us and of us.
