Winter Solstice

My heart is full after a weekend spent with old and new friends from the Quiet Mind community, marking the winter solstice together. And even as we gathered in person, I held close the many students who are far away this time of year—honoring winter in their own places. You were with me in spirit, as you always are, woven into this work and into this community in ways that stretch well beyond shared space.

Inspired by the solstice...We moved and breathed. We made joyful noise and sat in silence. We shared sauna and cold plunge beside the creek, letting cold water and warm steam remind us that contrast is not something to fear, but something to feel.

The solstice is a bittersweet time for me. Each year, it compels me to turn toward my own grief and our collective grief. I don’t just consider it—I go deliberately into it. The magic of the solstice becomes a catalyst for this feeling work. Not to fix or move past anything, but to sit honestly with what has been lost, what is changing, and what I continue to carry.

And somehow, alongside that tenderness, I have come to love the cold and the dark.

Swimming in icy ponds or the cold Atlantic brings me fully alive in a way very little else does. The cold wakes me up, sharpens my senses, reminds me that I am here. The dark asks me to slow down, to listen more closely, to wrap myself in what sustains me—poetry, friendship, family, long walks in the woods, shared meals, really good tea, and the inevitable little dance parties that follow a cold swim.

After the retreat closes out, I’ll be walking into the woods with people I love and who love me. We will light a fire, read poems, say names, and let our hearts be cracked open. We will touch the tender places in our spirits and hold each other’s hands and hearts. I am in love with this ritual and with the wise ones who have shared it with me over the years.

This time of year strips things down to what matters most.

I feel deeply honored to teach and to share whatever small bits of wisdom I’ve been lucky enough to gather along the way—not as answers, but as practices. Ways of remembering. Ways of returning.

Time is precious.
You are precious.
We are precious.

Yoga, again and again, connects me back to that truth—not as an idea, but as a lived experience in body, in breath, and in community.

Thank you to everyone who shows up—near and far, exactly as you are.  May we move gently into the dark, trusting that the light is already on its way.