The days are short, the nights are long. Most places in the northern hemisphere it is very cold and getting colder. Many of us are getting much needed snow. It's nearly time for the holiest day of the year, the Winter Solstice! Get ready. There is absolutely nothing to do. No particular right way to celebrate this sacred day. But here are a few ideas--
Have a fire with a Yule log and gaze into the flames. Sing Deck the Halls, make a resolution to enjoy the season.
Get more sleep--it's easy to do when it gets dark so early. Wash your sheets, block out every light you can, fluff up your pillows and get cozy. Get enough sleep so that you have lots of dreams, sad ones, scary ones, sexy ones, doesn't matter. Visit with dead relatives or famous people you've never met. Sit at the right hand of God. Just be sure to dream! Cuddle with your fur child and your human children. Cuddle with your lover, your spouse, a friend. Rub each other's feet. Tell stories. Sing together. Read a novel you already have on your shelf but never got around to reading or one you've already read, loved and forgotten. Read a whole book of poetry. Try your hand at calligraphy or origami. Write a sonnet or a haiku. Get better at crosswords or sudoku. Take a class in Italian or bird identification. Watch all of Call the Midwife or Transparent. Increase the time you meditate. Make a poppyseed cake and give it away. Make pecan shortbread and invite a friend for tea. Hand money to the homeless man or woman you pass on the sidewalk. Play with a child, listen to an elder, start a hard puzzle. Pray for peace. Pray for an end to the suffering of someone you love, someone you don't know, someone you don't like, yourself. Light candles and give thanks for oil that keeps burning, against all odds! Light candles and give thanks for a babies born who will grow up to be brave and wise. Light candles and ask for Russia to please bring all its soldiers home for Christmas. Watch the path of the sun as it heads to its rest in the southwest and where it emerges each morning in the southeast. What a small patch of sky it crosses! Reflect on how this is like the shortness of our lives. How many more solstices will we see? Who knows. Make this one holy.
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