Because it's Solstice...

In my author world, my feed is filled with year wrap-ups. 

I published one book this year.

That's it.

And I think it's the best book I've written so far and that's the goal but yeah. And I am going to finish off the year with the close out of a series and one more release (so that makes two books published just in the nick of the time) but I feel... like I don't have the energy for that type of engagement on my socials.

Stillness is the theme of the Solstices and I don't know why that has been lost in all the fluffery of pagan everything on the inter-webs (don't take this the wrong way --- I adore the fluffery so often! I post with fluffery! Love how it's in the mainstream and there's a whole Solstice ritual on TikTok right now making the rounds! Seriously, teenage me would be gleeful) but coming across this post today, made me reflect that this year for me, writing wise has been about holding steady.

And maybe that's enough.

If you dropped by here, I wish you a peaceful holiday season and the rest you need. 

 

*** 

 

Today is the shortest day and the longest night, in the Druidic calendar it is called Alban Arthan, the Winter Solstice. It is tempting to consider this day to be the triumphant rebirth of the Sun, but the Sun has not yet returned, it has only stopped falling. This is the still point of the year, the moment when the descent ends, but the climb has not yet begun. It is a liminal period that lasts for several days until the dawning of Christmas day. For three days the Sun appears to stand still, balanced on the edge of absence, not moving forward and not slipping further away.

The Sun rests here because the Earth herself is turning, her axis leans towards our star.

Nothing about this moment is symbolic alone, it is actually happening. The light that warms our blood, that ripens seed and leaf, that sings to bulbs hidden in the bed of soil, that keeps oceans moving and winds alive has now entered its deepest inward breath. It is like an intake of breath before we raise voice in song. We are not separate or passive observers of this mystery, our bodies know this turning, our bones register the long night. Our dreams deepen because the Sun has drawn away.

This is not psychology.

It is relationship.

The Sun does not return because we hope for it to do so. It returns because the cosmos is ordered, because cycles continue to hold, and even the greatest fires must bow to rhythm. However, without this fire there can be no life, there can be no green surge in spring, no harvest to gather in autumn and no breath in our lungs.

The Solstice is not a festival of triumph, we do not celebrate a conquest, it is not the victory of light over darkness. It is the moment when we discover that the darkness has gone as far as it can. The world does not change because we demand it, it changes because it has reached its limit. On this shortest day and longest night, we honour endurance of the Sun and the endurance of the Earth, and our own small endurance within that perpetual dance.

This is a teaching.

There are moments in life when forward motion might fail us, when striving only deepens the night, when actually the most powerful act is simply to remain and hold the line, to stay awake in the dark, to refuse despair without pretending that hope has already arrived. The Sun does not leap upward today, all dramatic with bells and whistles, instead it rests and gathers itself in the long night, and because it does, light will eventually return. Therefore today we do not rush the dawn of the morrow, we wait and honour the pause. We might sit with what has been lost, stripped away and reduced, we pause to acknowledge the quiet strength it takes to endure. This is the Solstice mystery, that when nothing more can be taken from you, when the night has done its worst, when all that remains is a single and steady flame, that that is truly enough. From that stillness the year will turn, from that darkness life remembers itself.

May you stand still today, unbroken, and may the light, when it comes find you ready.

 - Kristoffer Hughes

It's a tradition

 Thinking of this place.  

I always seem to be in the stage of missing community... 

Also? This is where I used to write about kink. 

And though I have lots of writing out in the world (just last week, another book out) this is the OG. 

We went to a dungeon recently. 

It was --- 

Too intimate to talk about. Too sacred to give words to. 

Processing still. 

But what I love about this stage of throwing in kink when you can, of slipping into D/s when we can, of me being squarely in the absolute position of the person who runs this damn habitat...

is how collaborative it is now and fun. Way, way more fun than when it was when I started here. 

I told him to fuck off in a room full of people with scenes going on (as part of our scene). 

Do you know how long it took me to do that??? How amazing I felt? That I could actually, use my voice in a space like that? Yeah, it was wild. 

And then the next scene which was exactly what he wanted that invovled rope-- was laughing and giggly and .. fun. 

So. 

I'm still here. In the thick of it (just different but similarly the same juggling of plates) 

Thought about this place because it's where I worked out a whole lot of daddy issues (laughs) and this year my choice was monster cookie and salted pretzel. 

small dose.

 blog cleanse.