What Is the Wonderful Value of the Darkness?

This time of year I tend to notice I’m in the minority with my love of snow and cold and darkness. As we approach the winter solstice, I love to reflect on the value of winter and the dark.

Winter calls us inward. The darkness asks us to slow down. The cold invites cuddling. Snow quiets us and requires we pay more attention to our driving.

House in winter

Hibernation season offers this wonderful opportunity to be with ourselves. Contemplating, reflecting, pausing and becoming. Very different from the accomplishing, moving, striving and doing of the “holiday season” and our culture in general.

When you pause for a moment, can you hear the quiet invitation to go inward? To become still? To allow? To be?

And, it’s totally cool if you’d rather do it on a sunny beach!

(Excerpted from my forthcoming book, “Strong from Within: Simple perceptions and practices for returning to the joy of you”)

5 thoughts on “What Is the Wonderful Value of the Darkness?”

  1. Embracing it all. Halina, I love that. Isn’t that why we are here, now, on this planet, as ourselves?

    And, I am imagining a way to enter the darkness now and emerge in March! What a beautiful idea to play with – when we choose our “hibernation,” what does that look like?

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  2. Ken, what I’m wondering about right now: can we have light and dark without duality?!? Or, do I need to try to “get rid of” duality? I have the sense that “good” and “bad” is judgment. Even if it isjudgment, then is up and down, light and dark judgment? It doesn’t seem like it is. These are fascinating questions without answers at the moment . . .

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    • Ahh! Good point (if there is such a thing as “good”). So, up and down can be objectively present without value (subjective) judgments attached?

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  3. Just finished a conversation with a friend about embracing it all-light and dark, and how there is a space in-between which I love. And, I happily enter the darkness. If I had a choice, I wouldn’t come out till March!

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  4. In the duality world, there cannot be “good” without “bad” to create the contrast, etc., etc. I wonder if “light” requires “dark”? Could we be “in the light” without darkness? And then there is yin and yang….

    I think I’ll go finish my nap!

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