Acclimating to the season

There are few things more beautiful than natural light glinting off of ice. The oak trees behind my house reflected some of the moonlight from the full moon last week. It gave an otherworldly glow to the night.

While we are a couple weeks away from the solstice, it certainly feels like winter here in the Northeast. I am now taking a winter coat with me when I run errands, just in case. I can feel my body start to acclimate to the cold. It's funny--the temperatures have such a bite to them when they first drop, and then my body adjusts, and 30 degrees just doesn't feel as cold.

I am acclimating to the dark too, and feel myself getting tired earlier in the evening. Our busy way of living often feels like it doesn't allow us to slow down, but I do what I can to let my body do what it wants to do. This is living with seasons, being in relationship with nature and weather. Why shouldn't we get tired when the sun goes down?

Part of this work for me has been allowing myself to reacquaint myself with the flow of nature, and allow that relationship to move my body, my energy, my sleep cycles, and my activity. Can you allow yourself to rest? Can you see nature beings to go to sleep for the season, and let yourself do the same? How does relationship with nature move your body and your energy? Can you let it?

A Relationship with Death

This is another older photo, from the center where we hold the East Coast residential programs. Some of you may be able to tell exactly where I was when I took it. It's taken at twilight, with this fascinating cloud pattern.

This time of year is akin to twilight. The weather is colder, the days become noticeably shorter, and we are well into the time when night is longer than day. It is also a time of year when many different peoples honor and remember beloved dead. For me, this is a time of year with the death anniversaries and birthdays of several different loved ones, and so the cultural association is personal.

Death is a touchy subject for many of us. I have shared with many of you that one of the ways my life has most been transformed by shamanic work is in my relationship with death, and the lack of fear when I think of it. But I acknowledge that death is still hard for many, and that fear of death persists in our culture and in many of our psyches.

Part of this work is that we cannot shy away from what makes us afraid. The things we deny have a way of presenting themselves to us over and over again, until we reckon with them and form a relationship with that which we once feared. So it is with death. Death is a part of life, and it is a certainty for all of us, eventually. What is relationship with death for you?

Silence and stillness

I'm sure many of us have heard the famous quote from Angeles Arrien:

“When did you stop dancing? When did you stop singing? When did you stop being enchanted by stories? When did you stop being comforted by the sweet territory of your own silence?”

Stillness and silence have been the theme of my own teachings for the past several weeks. Singing and dancing are important (and most of you know that I say it all the time). But silence and stillness are equally important. In our hectic world, there are ever-increasing demands on our time. In an age of supercomputers in our pockets, we are prevented from being unavailable. We also prevent ourselves from being still, as we take out our phones in line at the grocery store, in the waiting room at the doctor, and even behind the wheel!

Silence and stillness are not the same, and we need both. How can we really listen if we constantly create noise? How can we rest if we're always on the move? Our shamanic work requires both singing and silence, both dancing and stillness. It can be challenging at first when we aren't used to it, but I encourage you to find those moments when you take your ear buds out a listen to the sound of a forest, or to stop scrolling and fell the sensation of the air around you.

When did you stop being silent? When did you stop being still?