I can't find my Christmas Spirit this year. Maybe that means I'm doing it right.
on slowing down, wintering, and the gifts of solstice.
Calendars would suggest that Christmas is this weekend. News to me; this year I didn’t get a tree, I didn’t decorate with the 32 ornaments I have that my aunt Mimi gave me each year of my life, and the supplementary pom-pom garlands, twinkle lights, cheeky mistletoe, soft wool stockings that I usually weave through whatever apartment I find myself living in. Though holiday cards have been bought, none have been sent out (perhaps prepare yourself to receive a winter themed card from me in January?) I am not quite Grinch-like, but if I was invited to a party that asked me to bring a festive dip or wear a goofy sweater, I’d probably cry.
I try to think of the word for how I’ve been feeling. Frazzled isn’t quite it. Done might be about right. Attention span? Zero. Creative output? We’re trying our best (look at me currently forming one sentence after another). It seems like I can handle one task per day, but instead of honouring this slow pace, I am lamenting my inability to push through, over-function, persevere.
There is something more nuanced here too: I want to be creating, I want to be reaching and making work and sharing it. I want to write this letter to you. I want to say something helpful. I love my work and deeply want to deliver it into your hands. There is a tension that comes with being my own boss right now, in trying to ‘build something’ but the ‘something’ is a bit ambiguous; I make a list of ‘business’ to-dos, which are also things I happen to think are pretty cool (ie today: write you all a letter. Upload digital downloads since I missed the art-prints-in-time-for-Christmas train. Send snail mail.) Actually, there is no tension. There is only the weight of an unknowable thing, the thing being whatever I choose to make of these creative ideas I have. On some days that’s incredibly freeing. Some days it presses down like the moon laying its whole body down on my neck.
Of course, when I slow the rushing of my mind down from the Powering-Through mode that I picked up somewhere as The Way To Be, I remember that we are cyclical creatures who fluctuate through many seasons throughout a year. And here I am Wintering, as Katherine May calls it; I am leaning into the burrowing and not-muchness of the season I find myself in, and would do well to lean in and participate in making way for the quiet my whole being is asking for right now.
Today it is in fact Winter Solstice - the earth has turned her face as far away from the sun as she will this year, and tomorrow she begins turning back around. It is the darkest night of the year, but it is also the sun’s shortest path of the year. And there’s poetry in that too.
Katherine May guides us further:
“Plants and animals don’t fight the winter; they don’t pretend it’s not happening and attempt to carry on living the same lives that they lived in the summer. They prepare. They adapt. They perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them through. Winter is a time of withdrawing from the world, maximizing scant resources, carrying out acts of brutal efficiency and vanishing from sight; but that’s where the transformation occurs. Winter is not the death of the life cycle, but its crucible.” (from Katherine May’s book ‘Wintering’)
So here you find me in Winter’s crucible, softening myself, winding down, preparing for a holiday with my family that will be full of mourning and togetherness. I hope you will be gentle with however you greet yourself this week.
I hope you are gathering with people you love, who make you certain that you are easy to love. I hope you are met with softness in whatever grief you may be carrying. May you find quiet and stillness and softness in the coming days. And may you be comforted in knowing that the light is returning to us.
xo jess.
“Know your sources of rejuvenation:
the amount of solitude you need to feel fresh again.
the activities that strengthen your creativity.
the people who light up your spirit."- Yung Pueblo
“Some days it presses down like the moon laying down it’s whole body on my neck.”
Beautiful Jess, this time of solstice is indeed a time of rest which is at odds with the holidays. Wishing you moments of rest, softness and love.
Lovely Jess! See you soon!