What’s happening for people who are more awake and aligned heading toward the solstice? This time of the cycle for those in the northern hemisphere is about the deepest of reflections and planting of seeds, it’s not about doing, it’s about reflecting. It’s about mindful, deliberate selection of which seeds to plant. For those heading towards the summer solstice, it is a time for harvesting what was planted last winter.

Even though as a global culture, we’ve moved away from planet-based rhythms, and have habits and customs around that run counter to this, we can still find ways to align to the deeper rhythms and the abundance of nature.

I rap with Grace Edison about Aligning Your Solstice

• Agni during winter is at its deepest. Winter solstice is an incredibly powerful opportunity to reflect, digest, incorporate how the choices of the past year played out
• It takes work to stay aligned to our values when culture values are strong, such as around holidays, but doing so during winter plants powerful, powerful seeds that we will harvest in the coming year

What you’ll get out of tuning in:

• Understand how to align to the stillness and reflective nature of winter solstice
• See how you can incorporate winter solstice reflection into your seasonal rhythm
• Understand the inner power and potential we develop when we stay aligned to our values and seek reflection during winter solstice

Related podcast:

• Winter Solstice Rituals and Conversation about Depth of Connection with Kids and Teens with Jeanie Manchester

Show Highlights:

• 6:04 — Deep winter holds the deepest agni. It’s now that we can thoroughly metabolize the past year
• 10:18 — The power of reconciling, taking a deep look at our behavior and digesting it, is the solstice practice.
• 15:44 — Staying aligned to our values can be more challenging when cultural values are in peak states like during the holidays, but we have the capacity to stay aligned to ourselves and our values

Favorite Quotes:

• “There’s an absolute, undeniable opportunity this time of year to reconciling to the choices we’ve been making and ways we’ve been spending energy” – Cate Stillman
• “Winter solstice is the practice of using the dark to look at the light” – Cate Stillman