Winter Solstice Reflections on Time, Rest, and Letting Go

Time loosens its grip in the dark.

The winter solstice has always felt sacred to me —the shortest day of light, the longest stretch of night.

But this year, it lands differently.

Tonight the sky is moonless.

Dark in a way that feels honest, not ominous.

And maybe that’s why it feels like the right mirror for the year that’s just passed.

2025 stripped away almost everything I thought I knew.

What I thought healing would look like after the stroke.

What I thought life would feel like after the influenza that flattened our winter.

What I believed about momentum, stability, certainty — all of it undone.

The path has been anything but linear.

There have been peaks of clarity followed by sudden drops into fear.

Moments of surrender — and then the very human reflex of grabbing the worry right back again.

Over and over. And over again.

And yet… this has also been a year of profound growth.

A deepening confidence in myself.

A growing willingness to be brutally honest — not in a self-punishing way, but in a liberating one.

Nearly a full year of working with Jenn, learning to listen to my body instead of overriding it.

Letting sensation, fatigue, emotion, and intuition count as information.

And then, something shifted.

Since Thanksgiving especially, I’ve felt a very clear call to draw my energy inward.

To stop performing certainty.

To rest in not knowing.

Not collapsing.

Not checking out.

But resting.

At the same time, I made a quiet commitment — one that feels non-negotiable now:

to begin each day aligning myself with love,

and then to simply look for ways to serve love as the day unfolds.

Not grand gestures.

Not saving anyone.

Just noticing.

There are a million small ways to serve love in ordinary moments —

in patience, in listening, in choosing kindness over defensiveness,

in tending to what’s right in front of you instead of racing ahead.

You just have to open your eyes.

One of the biggest revelations this year has been my relationship with time.

When time stops feeling like something you’re racing against, the present moment becomes astonishingly spacious.

Expansive.

A wave you can ride instead of a clock you’re trying to beat.

And from that place — presence, allowance, rest —

life doesn’t demand effort so much as participation.

Tonight, the solstice doesn’t ask me to set intentions or claim outcomes.

It simply invites me to trust the dark —

to let clarity emerge without forcing it,

to remember that light is not lost just because it pauses.

The days will lengthen again. They always do.

But tonight belongs to the mystery.

And for once, I don’t feel the need to rush past it.

On this blessed Winter Solstice:

May time loosen its grip,

may rest feel earned simply by being,

and may the darkness remind you

that not everything grows in the light.

With so much love-

Lis