“ This is the solstice, the still point of the sun, its cusp and midnight, the year’s threshold and unlocking, where the past lets go of and becomes the future; the place of caught breath.”
~ Margaret Atwood
Here we go again! It’s the countdown to the shortest day of the year up here in the northern hemisphere. The funny thing about these shortened days of the holiday season is just how crazy busy they can be.
It’s almost like there’s some sort of inverse ratio between the length of the days and how much the universe wants us to cram into them.
So much good stuff! The holiday season has us connecting with friends and family, expressing our gratitude, pulling out old recipes, sharing food, and counting our blessings for the year behind us and the one to come.
The flipside of all that, if you ask me, is the another gift of the holiday season. And by that I mean the pauses in between. For just as frenetic and fun filled as the season can be, it also brings about opportunities for truly tuning out and unplugging.
Whether you get days-on-end or moments-in-between, the season is a good time to breathe into the spaces and put things into context. We spend so much of the year doing, now is a good time to simply be.
In Bali, they call the new year Nyepi. Along with much incredible feasting and the over-the-top tradition of both creating and destroying the wildly psychedelic Ogah Ogah’s there’s a full day from sunrise to sunset where everybody shuts up and keeps their mouth shut. No one talks or drives anywhere, everything is quiet and you just hear the chickens, (who could care less, obviously). Nyepi is like a gigantic reset button for the whole community. It’s as if releasing the past with a pause in between allows a clean entrance into the future.
Here in the western world, we all do our holiday season in whatever way we see fit. Regardless of your culture or traditions, the fact of our planet reaching its point of pause and turnaround in its dance with our sun makes for a milestone in our concentric circles of time, so roll with the cosmos and make the most of it.
May your holiday season be a time to breathe in gratitude and send out appreciation—we’ll see you again next week!
Much love till next Monday!
M+
Mark Metz
Director of the Dance First Association
Publisher of Conscious Dancer Magazine
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