• Skip to main content
  • Skip to header left navigation
  • Skip to header right navigation
  • Skip to after header navigation
  • Skip to site footer

  • HOME
  • ABOUT
  • SERVICES
    • Intuitive Life Coaching
    • Energy Body Alignment
    • Intuitive Readings
    • Women’s Winter Retreat: Composting 2020, Co-Creating 2021
  • BLOG
  • CONTACT
  • SCHEDULE

Winter Solstice: Light Emerging

December 20, 2011 by Emilah

Ok.  I admit it.  I LOVE the holiday season.  I mean really, really love it!

I play Christmas carols and sing along, decorate the house, prepare a big Christmas dinner, snuggle by the fire with my sweetie and kitties, watch Miracle on 34th Street and other oldies but goodies.  We went to see A Christmas Carol at the Blackout Theatre Sunday and it was fabulous! Our house is filling with gifts from family far and wide and my inner kid is soooo excited to rip and tear on Christmas morning!  I really embrace the cultural holiday traditions I was raised with and they bring comfort and light into my life at this dark time of year.

Yet beneath the cultural festivities, there’s something that touches my heart about celebrating the light during the darkest part of the year.  This has been a dark year for me; lots of deep inner work since the summer solstice.  In fact, it’s been a long period of marching deeper and deeper into myself.  Exploring, or more often, having revealed in an ugly, hitting bottom kind of way, what was no longer truly serving me.

The carnage was great: ways of being in relationship with my husband and community, the work contracts that comprised half of my income, spiritual practices, ways of eating and being in my body – the list goes on.  It’s no wonder I haven’t blogged from my heart in a while…I’ve been too busy being with what  my unconscious was tossing up to write about it!

So when I think that today, December 21st, is the solstice, the longest, darkest day of the year, I feel both mourning and celebration.  Mourning for the solstice celebration I won’t have with my friend Christine (who was THE BEST at calling in the four directions) because she transitioned on October 2nd.  Mourning all I’ve let go of and what continues to come up for release.

I celebrate much too: I can feel the light beginning to fill my own being again; like little rays of sunshine emerging through dark thunderclouds. Little bits of clarity are coming – new ways of expressing the work I offer the world, new ways of communicating with my husband, an itty bitty sense of wanting to move my body, a dawning awareness that the constant judgment I expect from others is actually living inside of me – so I can change that perspective. Patience.  Self-empathy.

None of these awarenesses are intellectually new, but the way they are embodied now is the revelation.  It’s not even the first time I’ve needed to move from a place of intense contraction to a place of openness and expansion.  But it is the first time I’ve done it with a partner who is also doing his work. This first year of marriage has been a doozy.  I’m tired, but I am better for it and the relationship is, too.

In the Unity movement, the celebration of Christmas is more about the birth of Christ consciousness within us than about the birth of baby Jesus.  Yes, we celebrate the tried and true stories of Christ, but the metaphysical interpretation of these biblical stories makes them personal.

How is the light of consciousness being birthed in me?  How am I a truer reflection of the compassion, kindness, and care that Jesus modeled?  How do I open up when fear is so present and my being so contracted that I can barely breath?  How can I trust, like Mary, that I AM birthing something wonderful and it will be OK?

My answer? FAITH.  Faith in something larger than me of which I am a part (thank you Oriah for that phrase).  Faith is how the light of consciousness is birthed in me, how I become more compassionate and kind, how I expand when I most want to contract.

During this holiday season, my faith is stronger, more present.  It often, oddly, comes from secular celebrations like I described in the first paragraph but, really, WHO CARES?  Faith, light and inspiration can come from anywhere; what matters is that they come. That we embrace and express them when they arrive.

So as this solstice dawns, I offer some questions for those of all religions/faiths:

  • From where is your faith and light coming?
  • How/what is your consciousness birthing this solstice?
  • What are you releasing to make room for your newness?
  • How are you embracing and expressing your light?
  • What does that little kid inside of you REALLY want to do this holiday?  Will you do it?

p.s. Photo by Don Bergquist

Related Posts

Category: Integration, Intimacy, Posts, TransformationTag: clarity, Inner light, intimacy, Solstice, Transformation

About Emilah

Emilah is passionate about helping people live in greater alignment with their soul’s calling. She lives in Santa Fe, NM with her husband Jacob and their two old cats (siblings Manu & Dora) and two young dogs (Maisy & Reggie).

Previous Post: ← Flower Essences: A Tool for Easeful Transformation
Next Post: Inch by Inch →
Subscribe
Notify of
guest
guest
2 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Linda Fischer
Linda Fischer
9 years ago

Em,
Thanks for the share from your heart. Your sweetness surrounds me with your light. Loved the questions….I too, have been diving deeper.

Blessings to you and Jay

0
Reply
Emilah Dawn DeToro
Emilah Dawn DeToro
9 years ago

I continue to be grateful for you, too! Have a lovely Christmas as you celebrate your new-found freedom and the miracles that are your children.

0
Reply

Sidebar

Tags

addiction aligned action Anusara Yoga authenticity Being w/ what is being with ourselves Choice clarity Commitment Compassion Compassionate Communication Contraction cultivating inner knowing Expansion Faith feeling our feelings Flower Essences Fullness of life gardening as a metaphor for life Inner light Integration Integrity intimacy Intuition Joanna Macy Judgment NVC people pleasing Practices Rage Receiving recovery from codependency relationships relationship with money Rilke Self-responsibility sliding scale Solstice Tools for Transformation Tranformation Transformation Wanting wholehearted living women's leadership worthiness

Blog Archives

Please follow, share and like us…

RSS
Follow by Email
Facebook
fb-share-icon
Twitter
Tweet

Feeling Stuck?

Relationships • Career • Health • Spirituality

Explore how to work with me…

Related Posts

Inspiration

“​‎I have been a seeker and I still am, but I stopped asking the books and the stars, and I started listening to the teaching of my soul.” — from Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

RSS
Follow by Email
Facebook
fb-share-icon
Twitter
Tweet

Recent Posts

Copyright Dragonfly Coaching and Consulting, LLC dba Emilah Dawn DeToro 2020 · All Rights Reserved · Powered by Mai Theme
Terms of Use · Privacy Policy (US, EU, UK) · Disclosure · Disclaimer · Cancellation and Refund Policy

wpDiscuz