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With apologies to all of you who have traumatic associations with this period of holidays, this is my absolute favorite time of year. The period from the winter solstice to the New Year has always been full of big ritual dinners with my enormous extended family, constant celebrations, overindulgences of one sort or another, and, frankly, a chance to let everything just fall down and stop. Including my body.

I’m completely sympathetic with those who lament the spread of what used to be a ten day period into a giant commercial megalopolis which seems to start, now, right after Halloween, with newly invented holidays like Black Friday which seem to lack both historical and spiritual meaning. In the same way that Boston to Washington DC seems to have evolved into one giant urban mass, the end-of-year celebration now seems to take up at least a fifth, if not a quarter, of our entire year.

It’s curious that I enjoy this time so much. The interesting thing is, I don’t enjoy having it be dark when I get out of work, nor do I enjoy the colder, longer nights. I don’t particularly enjoy what seems to happen to my body during this time of the year and I definitely miss living in the body I lived in during July. (I think of this occasionally as I plow through yet another treat that someone has brought into the office…but only momentarily, lest it interrupt the plowing.)

My workout routine inevitably seems to ‘relax’ at this time of the year, regardless of how much I steel myself for the approach of the season. And while I generally eat very healthfully, I relax even that in some sort of misguided sense that I’m giving myself a break.

Hard as I have tried at different times in different years, the urge to let things “just fall down” is pretty strong.  And I’ve started to think it’s also rather natural. Life is constantly in motion from one pole to the other. At any given moment, days are either getting longer or they’re getting shorter. Unless you live exactly on the equator, things are always tending one way or another. I might be growing muscle one week (but losing bone.) At times of year, I might be getting lighter and stronger for a period, but that period doesn’t continue indefinitely; it always turns around and heads the other way at some point. This is the nature of being alive.

One of the things I think I love most about heading into the darkest, shortest day of the year is the knowledge that I’m swinging around the pole, and that means that it’s possible to start coming back again. One of the things I love most about New Year’s Day is this perverse sense of relief, a voice inside that says, “oh thank goodness. Can we stop overeating now? Great.”

More and more, I am learning to value my ability to turn around, to begin again, more than I value the ability to hold it together or keep things the way they are.  In my opinion, there is no support from nature or spirit for the idea of “keeping things the way they are”–it’s utterly unnatural–but there’s support evidenced by millions of years of history for the idea that we live in endlessly repeating cycles and that not only is it possible to turn around and go the other direction: in fact, it’s inevitable. It’s impossible NOT to begin again. It’s impossible NOT to head 180 degree from the direction in which you’re now pointed. Look at the earth, the seasons, the sun, the way plants sprout, flourish, die, and begin again, and all of the many other rhythms of life around us.

So here I am, again, at this time of year, embracing my fattest, flabbiest self, eating the smallest amount of leafy greens possible despite the fact that I know better, shortchanging the time I spend on some of my spiritual practices, working out less. Blech. My darkest, coldest days. OK. Fine. Where’s that pivot point? Where’s that swing in the orbit where we start to turn around and head the other direction? Good. I can see it coming. I’m aiming for it. No, I’m running for it.

Here’s a holiday wish: embrace your bleakest self, the shadow self. That side that you’re NOT listing on your resume these days. The photos that you’re NOT posting. Just look at it. Acknowledge it. And lest you fear that doing so in some way might grant the part of yourself that you’re not thrilled with some sort of permanence, consider that nothing gets granted permanence, neither the things we love about ourselves nor our biggest disappointments.

We are bodies in motion. We swing around polar opposites. We are always in the process of beginning again. We are always on the verge of encountering a new gravitational field, one completely outside of ourselves, sometimes completely unexpected or even unpredictable, that will pull our planet in a completely new direction.

So I’m plunging into the darkness unafraid. As we head towards the shortest day I wish all of you blessings as we head around the solstice and begin the path back towards summer. If you’re cold, it is inevitable you will be warm again. Light inevitably follows darkness. Rather than trying to hold myself together at this point in the year, I’m going to jump in, head for that darkest moment and swing around that pivot point with all my might. I have no idea where I’ll be next, but I know exactly how to get there.

Whatever traditions you celebrate, I wish you peace, health, communion, blessing, and the presence of earth and spirit in your life.

Namaste.

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