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Originally written Nov. 22, 2023

The world is folding into the darkest time of the year, yet the lights of advertising and Black Friday poke at us to go, go, go, rush to get whatever it is we want while it’s on special. At least here in North America, November is the cruelest month. It’s not yet full winter, but that just means that the warm weather feels about 3 years away. . . February is awful, too, but by then, new buds and flowers are only about a year and a half away. . . .

These last days of November, it only makes sense to hunker down into what comfort we can create in each of our nests. But the children are rehearsing for the Christmas play, you promised your friend to go to the benefit Holiday concert, and some relative will be quite put out if you don’t find them the best present — plus, there are all those sales, NOW!

Everything inside of us pulls toward “high coze”; everything outside of us pulls us to get out, brave the ice, brave the roads, and buy buy buy.

In the U.S. it’s the feast of Thanksgiving — the first European settlers wouldn’t have survived without the knowledge and assistance of the Peoples who already lived in this land, yet those First Nations were thanked by being nearly annihilated by new illnesses, warfare, and land encroachment. Paradox and pain. Disjunct. Too many conflicts, too many wars, too much out of sync. Meanwhile Ukraine freezes through another winter of war and the Holy Land burns with hatred and destruction.

How do we make sense of it all? How do we find some peace? Many of us would be grateful just to get enough sleep!

Take a deep breath. Clear an evening for a quiet family supper. Ask what you want, ask what each member of your family wants, what you really want at this time of fraught extended family get-togethers and commercial frenzies. What, of what you really want, is possible for you to have? You really can do it differently if you want to.

I remind you because I need reminding myself that we don’t have to follow traditions or meet expectations or get pulled away from what is deepest and truest within us. We can semi-hibernate. We can turn off the t.v., play softer music, make popcorn and play with watercolors. We can say no to most opportunities to go out, instead meeting one on one with a few close friends in these weeks of diminished sunlight.

Darkness is so misunderstood. “It must be banished!” “Evil grows in the darkness.” “Do not give in to the dark side!” But dark is also rich earth which grows our food. Dark is a black velvet night holding us in its embrace. Dark allows us to see the tiny candles of light that cannot be distinguished in brightness. We can see stars in the dark. So much becomes clear in the dark of quiet contemplation. Without the darkness of shadows and contrast, we cannot see beauty.

In this season of growing darkness of the sun, I invite you to take 20 minutes with your favorite cuppa, light a candle, and write down three gifts of darkness that you have experienced. Then write down those people and things you are thankful for. Know your own truths and live out of them.