The year is swiftly moving toward its end, and it is a hectic time for so many of us. but the space between the years invites us to slow down, to reflect, to contemplate, and to envision. Nature is moving creatures into caves and plants into dormant states. And us humans are driving children to rehearsals for holiday shows, trying to catch up with to do lists, and over extending, over booking, over eating, and over buying.

I don’t know about you, but I am craving more spaciousness. The darkness of the season asks for less noise, less running around. It whispers soft teachings about death and undoing, and it invites reflection, contemplation, and daydreaming. But so many of us are too busy to listen right now. We hear it from afar, but there is one thing after another on those overflowing schedules… 

The tension between the natural world and the cultural modern human world during this season is real. 

Something usually shifts around the Winter Solstice. 

We can consciously engage in this shift and enchant the season with intentionality. And we can do it together. In person. On the beach. Wanna???!!! Let’s do it! 

A threshold opens up. The feeling of being in between things becomes palpable. And in the liminality of the moment, when the sun stands still (which is what the word Solstice means), there is this immense power of earth and sun, of darkness and light, of death and rebirth, of transformation and renewal, that we can access if we pause and let ourselves be with it, soak in it. 

The days between the Winter solstice and the new year are full of magic. They spark conversations within us and with others about untangling and repatterning, about initiating and restructuring. Dream portals open during the long nights. A visionary spirit dances in the darkness, ushering the light of the sun from the depth of death toward re-emergence.

The Winter Solstice holiday is much older than Christmas and the Gregorian year. The Church appropriated the Solstice celebrations. A new year begins around this time because the darkness gives birth to the light and a new cycle begins with a baby sun making tiny steps, climbing higher in the sky (from a Northern Hemisphere perspective). 

To move into the liminal space requires openness, and with it, the capacity to build boundaries, to learn how to respect them when we face them, and to push into them when needed. 

The liminal space is neither here nor there, and it’s also a “both and” place, and an area of  commingled qualities. It is where we initiate something and dismantle another, ignite a fire and extinguish another, discern and receive and reject and include and sift through. 

Join us for the Winter solstice Somatic Ceremony to create a sacred circle around the space between the years. 

There is intensity in the uncertainty of the space between things. The space between the years holds the grief of what was lost and what never came to be, as well as the hope of what could come next, and the enthusiasm around the opportunity to start again. Intensity isn’t a bad thing. It is full of creative impulse and desire, which can propel us forward and fuel the necessary change we must go through – willingly or not. 

There is potency to the Winter Solstice, and a charge that can support the momentum that we need for projects, in relationships, in inner work, for activism… and this power, this pulse of possibilities comes from pausing, from the gap between the years, the moment between the sun’s dip into the lowest, most southern spot, before it makes its way back north, the space between an ending and a new beginning, the space between this cycle’s exhalation and the inhale of the next one. 

There’s deep wisdom that awaits in this seasonal shift. 

We can totally ignore it and that’s totally ok. I know some people feel so tired of the pressure to wrap things up at the end of the year and to get motivated when the new year rolls in. 

I think resisting the capitalistic culture of consumerism during the holidays (and beyond), and then barely a moment of break, and then jumping back into the go go go rhythm of modernity when the new year begins, is wise. Especially since the new year begins in January when the light is still low, and the temperatures are low, and the energy is also often low. 

The wisdom and wonder of the moment activate when we weave ancient ways into modern living, when we resist modernity’s push push push go go go agenda and allow slower, deeper, softer, gentler currents to lead us. 

When we ritualize the transition of the season, and the space between the years, we bring to life the wisdom that is right there, waiting for us to tap into it. Making a sacred space around what nature is doing, and communing with the cosmic powers at play, can be deeply transformative. Humans have been doing that for a very long time. It’s only in recent history that we’ve cut our connection with the natural world and our ceremonial relationships with it.  

A ceremony initiates certain movements, propelling particular energies forward, calls in certain spirits into the space, brings forth specific qualities from within, and stirs together a brew of forces and visions that then nourish our lives and something greater than our own individual existence.  

Ceremonies bring things together – people, powers, ideas, inspirations, elements, energies – and break things down so that new ones can be born. Ceremonies are acts of love and art and imagination, which allows us to renew, revolutionize, and regenerate. 

The Winter Solstice Somatic ceremony will be a creative collaboration with the inner creatures and the calls we hear from the cosmos – collectively and personally. We will gather, we will connect, we will build something of meaning together, and we will consider the ways in which our sacred work can support our work in the world. 

December 21st is the longest night and the shortest day of the year, and it is when the sun plunges into death, so that it can renew itself. And so let us mark the occasion with deep contemplation, with stories that help us see more and understand more, with movement and breath that gently and lovingly bring the season into the body, with community, with imagination, with nature’s power and beauty, with art. 

Sign up for the Winter Solstice Somatic ceremony here. You’ll get the specific location and instructions for preparation upon registration. 

Let’s make it meaningful together! 

Get the ceremony as a holiday gift for a loved one. 

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Quick reminder: I am teaching a public class again and I am loving it! Join me on Friday mornings – 9:30 – at Crescent Yoga in Altadena. It’s an hour and we pack some yoga gems into it. It’s been so great to see familiar faces and get hugs from folks I haven’t seen in so long, and to meet some wonderful new people. I’d love to see you there! 

Thank you so much for reading! Hope to see you soon!

XOXO

Hagar