Longing for Light

Reflections on a Solstice Sunrise

What does nature do in the winter? We see animals hibernate, rest, and move more slowly…

I’ve loved seeing an increase in statements like these this year, encouraging us to consider if we can give ourselves permission to move differently for a season—or even dare to specifically move more slowly and less productively.

And alongside the many cues of Winter coming, a few weeks ago, I started to notice a stirring curiosity inside about what it would be like to move with the rhythm of the light each day in this season—the light that would soon dip into the darkest day of the year, only to dawn into more and more light each day.

For me, this has sweetly come alongside a longing for life not to be so heavy, to be lighter—both in terms of brightness and weightiness.

In my early work as a therapist, a mentor of mine reflected that he saw me as a person of great joy and great sorrow, something that made me feel so seen, and also, so heavy. I’ve carried a lot of joy and sorrow throughout my life, and I have no doubt that all of my life will include a combination of the two. When this was first named in me, I think the ratio was a little more equal. And my training as a counselor taught me that the depths of sorrow I knew were essential to open up the heights of joy I also moved through. I had peace about the great joy and great sorrow within me.

But something shifted over the years since then. Little by little, not by one moment, event, or season—but through the interweaving of more things than I can easily detail here—facets of that great joy have been overshadowed and weighed down. And over the last six months, as I’ve written a manuscript that became far more autobiographical and personal than I ever intended or expected, I’ve had the opportunity to move through those years and soberly face the weightiness I’ve carried with me—darkness that has been unsustainably heavy.

And as I shared a bit about in a post earlier this week, moving to Scotland felt like this incredible ray of sunshine, something light and too good to be true. And yet, after moving here, I was still carrying complicated (and heavy!) questions and fear, having a hard time totally sinking into the reality that I’m in this new place. And I think it’s because the weightiness came with me. The move itself didn’t come with a weight limit like our checked baggage did.

And somewhere in the last few weeks, in a way that’s difficult to neatly put into words, I’ve had this curious stirring inside that it’s time to release some of that heaviness—that it’s time to let the season of oversized darkness pass, and notice the coming light. And in a way that’s stirred deeper than words, I’ve wondered, what might it be like to set some of those heavy things down?

Enter the solstice sunrise.

Thinking about the winter solstice has been a really gentle way to invite the depths of my soul to envision this: Just as each day after the winter solstice includes just a bit more light, so little you might not even notice it, I’ve been wondering how I might gently embrace just a little more light day after day, letting the darkness naturally diminish.

Here’s a little more visceral way to think about this…

When we’ve been outside and it’s really cold, and our body feels freezing, it doesn’t always feel good to hop into a scolding hot shower. The temperature differential is too abrupt. A gentler (and kinder!) way to tend to our need and longing to warm up can be more gradual, moving with a more nurturing cadence for our body to thaw out.

That’s what I think is before me, some sort of slow moving cadence like the rhythm of sunlight that will now start to stretch just a bit longer each day… sunlight that will warm, thaw, nourish, and strengthen the joy within me, joy that will always dance in tandem with sorrow, but need not be overtaken by it.

And I’m curious, as you read this, is there anything that you have been carrying that is heavy, that feels somehow embedded in dark days? Something that you’d love to see sunlight dawn into? Or maybe there’s something that feels too scary to image a flood of sunshine pouring into, and right now, it’s nearly too much to just imagine a slow and steady increase of 1 minute of sunshine a day?

Wherever you are, and in whatever ways these words do or don’t resonate with you, I’d love to invite you to consider with me how we might move with the cadence of light that is shifting into a new season…

What light are we inviting in each day?

What is the darkness that is fading away?

And, if you’d like, please enjoy a picture from a solstice sunrise walk that I took this morning on the enchanted Isle of Skye off the western coast of Scotland…! The sunrise started with a light blue sky, and then a storm cloud was rolling in carried by high winds. It looked like everything was going to be engulfed in a Scottish dark haze.

And then, at the exact moment of the solstice (which I didn’t realize until I looked at the time stamp of my pictures…!), I turned my head to start my journey back to safety, and instead of only seeing a storm cloud, I saw this: