Every culture has traditions tied to this time of year. As the days shorten and the nights lengthen toward the winter solstice, each culture encourages a moving inward and an honoring of nature.
Pagan traditions celebrated Yule, bringing inside what endures through winter: decorating the home with fir and evergreen boughs, making wreaths of pinecones and winter berries, hanging holly at the door. Christians celebrate Advent, lighting a candle each week to draw more light within as the light outside grows shorter. Jews celebrate Hanukkah, the festival of lights, also drawing the light inward in the middle of the dark season.
The end of a depleting cycle
Ayurveda divides the year into six seasons and also into two halves. In the half of the year leading into summer, the sun and wind grow strong, hot and dry, drawing moisture and cooling qualities from the earth and gradually depleting the dhatus, the tissues that give the body its structure.
By the winter solstice, we arrive at the end of this depleting cycle, so it is very easy to feel strung out, sad and tired: all the things associated with the darkness within. This is a time to reflect on the darker places of the self, where they came from, what their root is, what our story around them may be, and to come to a place of deep acceptance. This is how we begin to heal. After the solstice, we find solace in a reawakening, as the days begin to lengthen again.
The light is inside
It’s easy to lose touch with the natural rhythm of the lengthening nights and deepening darkness, the wet and cold that urge us inside. At this time of year, inside is where the light is, where the warmth is, where the gifts are found. Inside ourselves, connected with the deepest and truest aspects of being, we find the stillness, peace and grace that can be so hard to find in the world. Once connected, like a taproot sunk into a well of liquid joy, we can return to the world nourished, sharing that grace with family, friends and loved ones. The cold, the wind and the driving rain simply become conditions in which we experience our strength and our connection with each other and with life itself.
Winter builds ojas
The rhythm of the winter solstice is slow and inward. In Ayurveda, this slowing down builds ojas, the subtle essence of kapha dosha. Kapha means to nourish, and it governs growth and repair in our cells. Winter is the time to build our yearly store of ojas, and the solstice kicks off that cycle.
Ojas is the vital glow from within that sparks health and immunity. Without it we lack luster and feel exhausted and burnt out. With it, we are not only healthy but relaxed, grounded and purposeful.
Our yoga practice is like putting ojas into a savings account that earns compound interest: the more we put in, the more we receive over time. Coming to the mat for physical practice and meditation is especially important and empowering now. Take time for yourself, and learn to say no to what drains you further.
Put “giving attention to my inner self” at the top of your to-do list. It is the best investment you can make at such a potent time.
Your astonishing light
The poet Hafiz wished he could show us, when we are lonely or in darkness, the astonishing light of our own being. The yogis believe this too: that you are essentially a beautiful, pure light of consciousness. We’ve all just forgotten, and when the body feels depleted, it is very easy to forget.
Yoga Sutra 2.6 describes false identification as confusing the Seer, the true Self, with the instruments of perception: mistaking the mind, body or senses for who we are. Start connecting to that unchanging seer within, purusha, and you are likely to be less bothered by the changes beyond your control.
Patanjali compares the mind to a brilliant gem. Over a lifetime it gets coated with the dust of conditioned thoughts and experiences, until we can’t even remember the light inside. Yoga is the process of cleaning away whatever blocks that inner light: the part of you that doesn’t need to be fixed, controlled or perfected. When you think of changing an unhelpful pattern as simply clearing away accumulated dust, you can look at it with far more compassion for yourself.
