The Year Gone and the Year to Come

📖📖 My new book, The Power to Choose: Finding Calm and Connection in a Complex World is out now! Get your copy here: https://geni.us/powertochoose

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And so here we are.

The nights close in.

The leaves have fallen.

The cold crackles into the outer molecules of our skin.

And another year, measured roughly from the longest night to the longest night, comes towards its close.

And we might be wise to think, as the longest night and shortest day approach, about the year gone and the year to come.

We might be wise to notice that there is something special about this particular moment. Where, like all moments, the past and future come together, one rising up to meet the other.

To notice that there is something old about it.

To notice there is something apt that the story of a miracle birth, of a god being born anew, happens at this moment, in this season.

We might look back, alone or together, at the love, loss, laughter and life of the most recent cycle around the sun.

We might notice there are people whose journeys in this life are over.

Some, maybe, we knew. Most, we didn’t.

We might notice that there are people whose journeys have just begun.

Some, maybe, we knew. Most, of course, we didn’t.

We might notice that there are some who thought they had seen their last darkest day, but who will be with us this winter.

And we might notice that there are some we thought might see their first darkest day, who now won’t.

We might see the hopes and dreams that we have cherished… some shifted, some protected still as a hazy, magical dream. Some in the world.

We might see the fears and questions that have trapped us, or sucked the calm and connection from our life.

We might notice the regrets that - if we are careful - can become the next stone we lay in the statue we are building of our future, higher self.

We might even begin to notice that the shoots of Spring are already stirring, somewhere under the surface. And that in a few days, as the days start to lengthen, the shoots of Spring in our selves may start to emerge into our consciousness.

Or we might notice that there has been much rupture this year, and that like the bear and the hedgehog, we need to take a little more time to repair before we adventure again in the Spring.

Now is the time for seat by the fire. For the warmed water or wine. For the arms of someone you love.

For the slow appreciation that this year, you lived.

For the slow excitement that, next year, things could be more.

For the release of the judgment and the wishes for how things could or should be.

For the discovery that underneath the judgment and wishes is love.

Enjoy the darker days and their place in our northern calendar.

Enjoy them, and enjoy the whispers of Spring, as the sun begins to rise a little sooner, and a little sooner, and a little sooner, until the days are bright and long again.

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PS My new book, The Power to Choose: Finding Calm and Connection in a Complex World, is out now! Get your copy here: https://geni.us/powertochoose

This is the latest in a series of articles written using the 12-Minute Method: write for twelve minutes, proof read once with tiny edits and then post online.