A Time for Stillness
The development of inner awareness sets us up for a New Year. Many religious traditions celebrate the light through warmth and remembering during the year's longest nights. As we experience this season of light, let us call on the glow in later winter months as an ember to warm our souls.
The gift of this season is in slowing down. It is easy to get swept away from November through December, celebrating holidays, being with family, practicing sobriety, or keeping a consistent schedule during a season of disruption. Grace needs space, and we would set ourselves up for greater flow by intentionally scheduling time for quiet when our calendar fills more than usual.
The ability to flow between celebration and being allows us to receive gifts we may miss through unconscious busyness. As our collective consciousness continues to ascend, our need to relinquish control becomes critical in keeping us grounded during these frequent shifts.
The Earth encourages us to get quiet as we slow down following the holidays. To hibernate. To go to bed early and sleep late. To fast or limit our intake to supportive, warming foods that bring total nourishment with little energy of digestion required.
This is a time of conservation. A time to preserve; whether that be our energy, thoughts, or ambitions, this is a time of being, not doing.
We must consider how we handle what can surface when we settle into stillness and quiet. Many meditation teachers highlight the need for a support system as one dives deeper into themselves. Courage is necessary as one brings whatever they’ve been hiding in the dark toward the light for healing. This is alchemy.
When we slow down to listen, we can discover the work we’ve been overriding through times of productivity or the busy season. If we look at a calendar year only, we’ve planted, tended, and harvested up to this point. If we look at a lifetime without the cultivation of stillness, we have much more to unearth. What occurred during certain phases that could use more tending? What is needed to allow tenderness?
I learned a Shamanic practice through The Power Path that looks at taking inventory of one’s life. As we review the year, it could be helpful to include impactful circumstances' who, what, when, where, and why.
This allows one to discern where they spent time and energy doing what they loved. Did this circumstance fill the cup, or was it an energy drain that could have been left alone with greater awareness and discernment?
As we get clearer about the people, tasks, and environments that give us life, it’s much easier to set goals around alignment. When we can flow in and out of changing experiences while staying aligned, our quality of life is improved. We live more wholly.
Being in flow requires grace to fall out of alignment or into a circumstance less than ideal. We must release control to flow, then practice awareness of where we are and the gift of forgiveness to begin again.
A friend recently shared that the root of the word amateur means love. Our work is fueled by love when we practice from a don’t-know mindset. We are completely vulnerable and in flow. So let’s get good at being amateurs.
As we move into the New Year, we can revere the year we just completed. Honoring where we’ve been pays homage to a life chosen and frees us for what is to come.
Space is necessary to allow that to form organically. We must move from the thinking mind into the heart. We must feel. These beautiful yin qualities are part of the requirement for balance so that when Spring arrives, we’re rested and aligned with our work.
We ask people to come inside the Louisville Salt Cave to use that time to help create their outside. Whether doing this at the Cave or intentionally bringing the practice into your life, this yin season supports this.
Some Native American traditions call on the North to teach perseverance. Yin teaches us this. We must be as comfortable being as we are in productivity and achievement. We must feel in our bones that we are enough just by our existence. May our ancestors guide us through winter. May we learn perseverance through stillness.
