This time of year…

December 26, 2025

It's that time of  year...

For festivity and spirituality, and the sparkle of oncoming winter.  I hope it has been joyful and fulfilling for you.

Once your year-end celebrations settle down, the season of guarding your resources--winter--will ask you to hunker down and in.

Chinese medicine puts great store by stepping in time with the realities of each season.  Winter is the one season that encourages stillness. Why? To preserve your vital life resources.  In pre-modern times,  the food and firewood you had stored up in winter was most of what would get you through until spring.  Even in early to mid spring, you might have a rough go as your winter stores ran low or out.

Guarding your resources in our times, however, is more about taming personal drive and ambition in favor of rest. 

This is a time to listen to the small sounds around you -- a twig, a raindrop, a step on a pavement.  Be quiet(er).  Hear yourself.  This is the vibe of winter -- deep, dark, and still. Out of this comes a different sort of sparkle -- a wellbeing I am hard put to name.

The title of one of my favorite books beautifully evokes the type of behavior supported by winter:  The Slow Regard of Silent Things.*

Let's see if we can do a little of that this season.

Wishing you star-filled nights and slower, richer days.