December 22, 2015 marks the shortest day and longest night of the year. It is the day where we will have the least amount of light in our lives. While many think of this as the beginning of winter, it is really the mark of the peak of winter. Right in the middle of the cold, comes this day where there is little light and a long night.

Has your year been heavy? Dark? Sad? Have you felt a list of physically draining symptoms (low-libido, fatigue, pain)? Are you ready to shift away from the many things that are hard for you and move towards a life that is more of what you love?

The winter solstice is a pivotal moment where our hours in the night have a beautiful way of telling us, "This is as dark as it gets. It just gets lighter from here."

If you have been carrying pain, suffering and you are ready to let go of it, today is a great day to get it out of your system. Write a journal entry, paint something, and toss it into your fireplace or burn it safely over a candle. Think to yourself, "I am releasing..."

With this same intention of movement and shifting we are moving into longer days, which means more light! While we look at what we want to release, we can also look at what we are ready to have more of in our lives. Light a candle, think of what you want and bring anything that represents more of what you want.

Wishing you a warm and cozy dark day. May you light as many candles as your heart desires.

There are many things that remain a mystery to me and maybe always will. But there is one thing I am sure, that is that life is full of injuries and recoveries.

There will be the injuries to your body at certain times of your life. During those times you may wake day after day, not physically being able to lift your tired & sore muscles from bed.

There are the injuries to your heart that cause waterfalls to continuously flow from your eyes until there is not water left.

There are the injuries to your soul, that can knock you down for more than just minutes, days or weeks. These are the ones that it can take a lifetime to even realize that you got injured. It was so gradual and your life has been so hazy you didn't even notice.

In these ways life is nothing but a series of trauma that we have to continue picking ourselves up out of bed and continuing on.

But the recoveries and the light that come from these dark and painful moments are brighter than anything we have ever imagined.

Sometimes they may not feel bright because they take time, to climb, inch by inch up a steep hill. We may feel as if we are dying on the way up, and so winded by the time we reach the top it's hard to enjoy that empowering view.

The most important part of this is to recall even with our individual and very personal traumas, we are not alone. We suffer in community, we got hurt along the way with the rest of the bunch. And in this respect we are all suffering side by side, day by day. This suffering often feels lonely, isolating and sometimes like failure. However, there is nothing more human than pain and heartbreak.

This leads us to the undeniable opportunity to heal together. We can heal together in ways we had no idea we needed healing. We can pick ourselves back up and glue the pieces back together in ways that are more deeply rejuvenating and we didn't even realize there were pieces that we left behind.

We can heal together in ways we had no idea we needed healing.

In Japanese ceramics there is a form of repair called Kintsugi which translates roughly to 'gold joinery'. This process uses metallic fill to repair the cracks in the clay which have happened over time. The poetry of this process amazes me - to acknowledge there are cracks and not discard a piece but highlight it with gold. What else is there to say?

As an acupuncturist, I sit every day in front of people who tell me what their pains are. From back pain to heartbreak I hear how people endure, yet they often feel like they are breaking apart. Acupuncture is my art, it is my way to pour gold into their cracks. I often acknowledge that there is room for all of that. There is room for the broken, we are not only our strong side. Our darkness is a teacher, a companion and it is a way for us to know when things are light. Isn't there such deep relief to hear that you are no failure, you are merely a breathing, feeling, human?

There is room for the broken, we are not only our strong side.

I hope so. I hope that you know your darkness has brought you to a lightness that will create so much beauty and life for the world. If you are in your darkness, I hope that you know you are in a different darkness than the one before and you have only time until the gold fills up the cracks.

SITED:

http://www.notechmagazine.com/2012/02/traditional-repair-techniques-the-japanese-art-of-kintsugi.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kintsugi

The Darkest Day

Going Golden