Why I never make New Years Resolutions

I often feel the need to remind myself around the new year that, it’s still winter…

The Winter Solstice was only 2 weeks ago!  And yet our modernized culture portrays this as a time to set goals and get after it!!  Another example of how we have turned nature's rhythms upside down.  

Don’t get me wrong, I love any opportunity to create more intention, ritual, and celebration.  I just feel we have missed the mark on how to potently attune to the natural forces that are currently present.  These few weeks around the Winter Solstice are offering us extra juice to go inward and illuminate our shadows.  A time for deep contemplation and reflection on this past cycle of birth - life - death - rebirth.  We have a golden opportunity for another rebirth, so that we can emerge in the spring with fresh energy and prosperous inspiration.  This is still a good time to start contemplating any goals or new ideas.  And maybe not so ideal to take full fledged masculine action.  

I like to say that Sacred Rest is more of a perspective…an attitude towards life.  Many people today have full schedules with kids and 9-5 jobs.  It’s about the magic in the mundane.  The little things that we get to relish in with gratitude and wonder.  I often think about the fulfillment that comes from eating more seasonally and locally.  Yoshua and I get so lit up around the in-season foods of each season.  The sweet peaches of mid-summer.  The crisp apples of fall.  The perfectly juicy oranges of winter.  The first harvest of spring with fresh greens and fragrant lilacs.  I know before I had this perspective, and had everything available at the grocery store…well I definitely took it for granted and didn’t get that excited about it.  

The more I live attuned to nature and the seasons the more I am also loving winter!  The brightness of night with the reflection on the snow.  The permission to go to bed at 8.  Taking extra time to make herbal teas and read good books.  Making nourishing broths and stews that lead to days of leftovers.  Buying or making extra special beeswax candles.  The vibrant life of the evergreen trees next to the blanketed snow white covered ground.  

The added permission to just rest and be….