Celebrating the Winter Solstice: Turning Darkness into Wisdom and Renewal.
Last night as the sun set on the eve of Winter Solstice, I sat by candlelight, watching the darkness deepen outside my window, and felt relief.
While our culture urges us to now celebrate the return of light, I'm drawn to linger here in this moment of stillness, like the pause at the end of a long, much needed out breath.
I don’t want to rush forwards into the light just yet.
I want to honour darkness itself as a vital force of nature.
For thousands of years now, patriarchal thinking has shaped how we view darkness. We have become a culture that is afraid of the dark.
We equate intelligence with being "bright."
We seek "enlightenment" on our spiritual paths.
We chase clarity, illumination, certainty.
Our cities blaze with artificial light, pushing back the natural rhythms of dark and day.
From a Taoist perspective though, darkness (Yin) and light (Yang) are equal forces, endlessly transforming into one another.
Darkness represents the feminine principle - that which is unknown, shadowy, mysterious, internal, and gloriously chaotic.
It's the cosmic womb, the dark earth, the mysterious abyss from which all life emerges.
Without darkness, there is no birth, no renewal, no transformation.
The last few years have been hard and there is no doubt that we are living in dark times collectively.
The world feels heavy with uncertainty and upheaval - a kind of darkness we cannot simply outrun with more efficiency, productivity or blind optimism.
My instinct in times like these is often to push harder too though, as if I could somehow force my way through to clarity and certainty.
I can often find myself on the run from what is painful, difficult or frightening.
But I've learned that racing forward towards the light only distances me from the very wisdom I need, which is found only inside of the darkness.
“Beware the myth of ascension” a Buddhist teacher once told me.
“Sometimes, the Buddha sits beneath you”.
Today, the Winter Solstice arrives as nature's invitation to embrace the dark.
As the daylight diminishes, our bodies produce more melatonin, promoting deeper, longer sleep and awakening our inner eye to the dreaming world and our imagination.
These long nights make winter the perfect season for reflection and introspection. For homecoming.
It's a time for composting and digesting, turning vital nutrients back into the soil of our beings.
For ambitious change-making women who’ve learned to measure success by forward motion, this season of stillness can feel deeply unsettling.
We fear that slowing down means losing ground, that resting means falling behind.
But Wintering, is not a retreat from power; it’s a reclamation of it.
By releasing our grip on the illusion of constant progress, we regain something infinitely richer: a connection to the fertile void, where new wisdom can take root and new worlds can emerge.
Earlier this week, during a session of my Wild Idling (a space I’ve created for ambitious women to come and just BE), one woman arrived nervous at the thought of having 45 minutes of unstructured time to herself.
It’s a common experience.
‘Doing nothing’ is an invitation into the unknown, and it’s confronting - who are we without a task, a role, a goal?
She returned at the end having written an extraordinary poem.
The kind that leaves you speechless and covered in goosebumps.
What she found in the fertile void of darkness was her deeper, truer, wilder wisdom. She’d found truth.
The kind that cannot be accessed by performing or pushing or trying.
This is the paradox at the heart of winter: the more fully we surrender to darkness, the greater the potential for our truest light to emerge.
When we reach the extreme of Yin, Yang naturally arises.
This can't be forced - it’s not a ‘doing’ thing - it occurs only through softening, surrendering, sleeping, dreaming, resting, opening.
Tonight, on the longest night, I invite you to claim some darkness for yourself.
You might begin small - an evening with no screens, a morning by candlelight, an hour of unstructured dreaming time.
Create a space that feels delicious to you. Perhaps gather soft blankets, light candles, brew your favourite tea. Let yourself follow the threads of your own curiosity. Read poetry. Gaze out of windows. Draw in your journal. Or simply sit in sweet silence.
Notice what emerges when you grant yourself this spaciousness.
What whispers to you in the quiet? What dreams surface when you stop pushing? What wisdom arrives when you allow yourself to simply be?
Remember - this isn't indulgence.
This is essential nourishment for your soul and your work in the world. This is how we resource ourselves for the year ahead. This is how we tap into our deepest wisdom and most aligned path forward.
