Where do you see light in Winter?

Happy Almost Solstice!

It’s almost solstice. The longest night, a time for reflection and softness, leading to renewal. I love this time of year—burrowing into a cold season, making plans for what to let go of and what to nurture next year.

This morning I gave myself the prompt: “Where do you see light in winter?”

Here is what came up:

I see light in winter when the wind blows and the trees whisper their secrets, then roar and share them with the whole neighborhood.

When the screech owl in the backyard sings like a waterfall.

In the sweet, open space of this room where I write. It’s gentle molecules, waiting, offering.

I am so grateful for all this this morning. Thank you.

Thank you for my neighbor whose lights are often on in the middle of the night at the same time mine are. Thank you for that mourning dove, cooing her true note. Thank you for this 56-year-old body that can move and dance and enjoy this life.

Here is a story I want to tell you!

I remember a night years ago, when my children were small. We went to our best friends’ house for dinner. They owned an antique store, and part of their job was to drive around the region in search of wonderful old things. They were so good at this. Once they found an antique quilt unlike anything I had ever seen. It was purple and deep red—gorgeous jewel-toned colors—but the best thing about it was that whoever made it had created an entire horse village through embroidery. There was a hand-stitched horse general store with horses buying things—oats, hay, carrots. There was a horse court with a horse judge and a horse jury, listening to the testimony of a horse thief. I know! The piece was so brilliant! It glowed—as if it were alive, even all those years after it had been sewn. When I looked at it, I saw a long winter, glittering snow, a dark blue starlit sky, a fireplace, deft fingers sewing that beautiful strange thing with humor, fierceness, and vision.

What people can do when left to their own devices in a dark season!

What would we be making if we weren’t on our screens all the time, if we sat by our fireplaces while night and snow fell, sewing or painting or playing music into the sky?

Anyway, that day when we came into my friends’ house, the dining room table was covered with hat trimmings: tiny clusters of silk flowers—violets, pansies, blue forget-me-nots—fake fruit, and a few birds. My friend said they’d been to an old milliner’s shop and bought out the inventory. I can’t quite describe how exciting it was to touch those piles: flowers, many of which hadn’t faded, still waiting for hats.

My friend’s husband made dinner—I think it was some kind of couscous—and we cleared the table, lit some candles, and sat down to eat.

I held one son on my lap, the other disappeared into the playroom with my friends’ twins. We talked about the day and our families, insane things our children had done that week—(stuffed q-tips down the sink, attempted to make mustard cookies, refused to wear socks because they bite, etc.). While we were lost in our own conversation, my friend’s 7-year-old drifted around in the background with the hat trimmings. I didn’t pay much attention or notice, until at one point I looked up and everything was decorated, including our husbands, who were talking about whatever we were talking about with flowers in their hair.

It was delicious—the candles, the men talking and laughing with clusters of violets and daisies tucked behind their ears and balanced delicately on their heads. I remember briefly thinking, “Oh! That’s who they really are.” Maybe in the eyes of the Universe we are always like this—carrying on, saying whatever, bedecked in flowers and soft light.

Why am I thinking about this now?

Sometimes I think this is secretly happening all the time, that we are going about our business, talking about things we think matter, but there are other unseen currents steadily flowing in the background, conspiring towards uplift and wonder. Tibetan monks praying daily for the happiness of all beings. Children waking up with amazement about everything, even the rain. Two sisters laughing at a joke only they understand, laughing so hard that tears stream down their faces. No one else thinks it’s funny, but the sisters and the stars know, and that sound of those two women laughing so hard shoots around the world like a rocket. What about all the quiet gardens people are planting? All the songs the birds and the wolves and the whales sing. Even someone like me, who knows there is all kinds of terrible happening in the world all the time, and grieves it, but keeps singing to the water every week, because I hope it will help heal its molecular structure, and also because sitting by a creek with no one around, listening to its steady rushing and singing back, fills me with a joy I can hardly explain.

I don’t know how any of this works. It doesn’t matter.

In the water the fallen leaves sparkle like fields of gold. This world shimmers all the time.

What about you? What seeds do you want to plant as we go into this winter season? What do you want to nurture as we head into what will surely be a ride in 2025? Here is my list so far:

Happy Holidays Everyone!

Last year’s Craftsmas project