The darkness of winter: time to turn inwards.
The northern hemisphere is swaddled in darkness, as it is each winter. Today is the longest night of the year; the shortest day. The sun will rise late and quickly dash off, leaving us behind to contemplate the cold, wind, and dreariness of night. Despite the prominence of electric lights and bright screens, and cheery holiday tinsel lining the streets, it’s still dark by early afternoon.
It makes me tired, it makes it harder to work. I struggle to keep going in the afternoon, wanting instead to curl up and hibernate. For many of us, we forget that this is the darkest day of the year. We’ll notice it only through our increased desire for caffeine, a twinge of melancholy, or a lack of motivation. As Clark Strand writes in Bring On the Dark, “few of us will turn off the lights long enough to notice” the winter solstice happening right around us.
“There’s no getting away from the light. There are fluorescent lights and halogen lights, stadium lights, streetlights, stoplights, headlights and billboard lights. There are night lights to stand sentinel in hallways, and the lit screens of cellphones to feed our addiction to information, even in the middle of the night. No wonder we have trouble sleeping. The lights are always on.” — Why We Need The Winter Solstice
These dark days are a gift: it’s an opportunity to turn inwards, to reflect, and to ponder.
Darkness invites contemplation, reflection, and inner reflection. Dwelling in it can also, for me, bring up deeper sadness and sorrows. It comes in waves, for me, the periods of stillness and rest, of quiet and solitude. Sometimes my mind dips into periods of darkness; I know that I’m deep in restoration and rebuilding. Patterns emerge; ideas begin to form. My other senses sharpen as I rely less on my eyesight.
We’re called to go into the darkness. To find our own inner guru.
When you dim one sense, you brighten the other senses, adding clarity, range, and acuity to your abilities. The ability to feel a range of emotions increases your emotional depth. The upside of darkness, however, is that it is a beautiful time for rumination and reflection.
In yoga, inviting the darkness in is an invitation to find your own inner wisdom, your own inner guru. In studying with Sara Neufeld recently, I learned more about how darkness is an invitation to find your own inner wisdom.
The word “Guru” comes from two words, gu (darkness) and ru (light). From a seat of heaviness or darkness, we go through experiences that bring us to light. One who has experienced both darkness and light has accumulated wisdom. In the yogic tradition, we all are our own gurus — capable of finding our own inner wisdom when we go inwards and close our eyes to contemplate our being.
This is beautiful. Winter was never my favorite season, but I am learning to love it more and more. The shorter days have their own charm and coziness that seems to invite reflection unlike any other time of year.
The melancholy of autumn and winter have always appealed to me. True, I miss the sun, the energy and the flurry of life. But then it’s such a beautiful time if we allow it to be. The perfect time to slow down, hibernate, accept the gift of rest. The perfect time for learning to move with the natural cycles of nature, to respect them and find through them a respite from the hectic pace of our lives, from the frenzy of our minds, from our compulsive urge to be productive, to do, to move forward.
Some hate this time. If we run from our darker feelings these times can be challenging. The unescapable melancholy will bring up the sadness, loneliness, deep longings buried within us. This can feel threatening. But if we allow these feelings to just be, allow ourselves to be carried gently by the waves of emotions, carried to places they want to take us we may realize they lead us to our own depths, our own authenticity. They reveal places within us they have long been frozen, walled off, abandoned. Places that desperately yearn for our attention. If we let go of the urge to snap back into productive mode, into safe realms of joyfulness, if we give in, trust and let this time guide us we may experience for ourselves the paradox of finding nourishment, renewal and deepening of our souls through opening ourselves to the very feelings we normally run from, opening to “the places that scare us”.
Sarah, this is lovely. It reminds me of Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse… and the following quote specifically: “For now she need not think about anybody. She could be herself, by herself. And that was what now she often felt the need of – to think; well, not even to think. To be silent; to be alone. All the being and the doing, expansive, glittering, vocal, evaporated; and one shrunk, with a sense of solemnity, to being oneself, a wedge-shaped core of darkness, something invisible to others… Beneath it is all dark, it is all spreading, it is unfathomably deep; but now and again we rise to the surface and that is what you see us by. Her horizon seemed to her limitless.” – Virginia Woolf
Greg, love this: “it’s such a beautiful time if we allow it to be.” Couldn’t agree more.
Brittany, it’s so true! They invite reflection, and I think it’s good that we get that prompt every year. Also, it makes anticipation for summer so much stronger.
Gorgeous quote. Thanks for sharing that with me.