Solstice, Rain, December, Love.... Ah

SOLSTICE, RAIN, DECEMBER, LOVE
There we go, that's a nice list to think about and weave around, isn't it?

Words, they can keep us so captive and miserable, and then, if we use them as pointers, and not the thing at which we are pointing, they can be sweet and pleasant reminders.

The glory, well one of the glories, of the Feldenkrais Way is that it brings us deeper into ourselves, into a level of sensing and immediate awareness of our embodied self. Funny, having a body, but it's the main game going on, and walking out to the kitchen, or up into the hills, or picking up a ball and throwing it around with our kids are all still of the essence of what a life is all about.

And so; solstice: the Earth moves, rotates around itself each day, and rotates around the sun each year. Here we go, those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, having rotated around to the shortest day of the year. Shortest day, longest night, the ebb and flow. What if the night were like soil, and cultivating the glories of the night were like a plant sending down roots? And if day were like the sunlight, and cultivating the glories of the day paralleled the plants love of and growth to the sunlight?

In the night we see less well and hear better. It's the time for cuddling around a fire, or a warm naked friend, or a good book, or bowl of soup (even raw soup can be very tasty and warm enough to make it just a delight). Time for music, to sing, to play, to listen, to hum to ourselves by the fire, or gazing up into the bright cold winter's night. Time to go to bed early, or meditate, or go to be early and cuddle with our naked friend, and even more, maybe, and then wake up before it's time to get up and stay warm and peaceful, meditating in our warm winter's bed.

Do less in the winter, spend more time cultivating the slow and the peaceful. Save up for summer the running around, the perky, the blasting off into the light.

And then there are the celebratory folk, lights on the tree, ho, ho, ho, lots of presents and visiting and feasting. And some folks, bless them, really like this, and if they can do it without losing themselves to automatic behavior, what an accomplishment.


And it's raining today. The wetness, in this climate, a Mediterranean climate, which means two main segments of the year; wet in the late fall, the winter and the early spring, and dry the rest of the time.

Now is the time of wet.

Now is the time of rain.

The front of the body and the back, the top and the bottom, the left side and the right. There are all these useful ways of temporarily dividing up our internal sensory attention. This is good.

The rain is good. It is wet and I'll get out my umbrella and take a walk in it, just to make sure that my 'be comfortable' conditioning doesn't have too strong and grip on me.


December is now. December 21 is today. The end of the year. The year has rolled through. The Earth has survived. Those of us reading this have survived.

What have we loved this year? Who have we loved? What little steps have we taken in the continuing transformation of ourselves toward our dreams and image of a sweet and complete life? What moments of pleasure and satisfaction and usefulness have we given ourselves? What have we learned? What are we enjoying learning?

Are we learning more about love?

Are we loving what we are learning?

Are we loving the people around us?

Are we loving ourselves?


Ah, the possibilities, the options; this is life isn't it? This is life.