Finding our Light During Winter's Darkness (A guided mindfulness meditation)

Take a moment to get settled into a comfortable and supported position. If you feel comfortable, close your eyes, or just relax your gaze. Together we are going to take some time to reflect on the themes for the Winter Solstice and this Capricorn New Moon. If you notice your attention wandering, that’s OK..that is just the habit of the mind, notice it and, without judgment gently guide it back to your breath.

We will begin by tuning into our breath. Notice your breathing and, if comfortable, I invite you to gently lengthen your exhales. 

Beloved, we are being wrapped in the veil of darkness as we experience the longest nights of the year. The darkness is an invitation to limit our contact in the external world and, instead, deepen our contact with our internal world. The abundance of darkness is not here to judge, to expose, or to unsettle.. No, dear ones, just the opposite. The darkness is here to shelter us, provide us privacy, and swaddle us in the softness of her velvety black curtains, so that we can be encouraged to dive within. 

Notice, in this moment, your breath. Your breath is your companion reminding you in this moment, in every moment, you are here, you are safe, and you are held. Your breath reminds you that whatever you feel, whatever you do or have done, whatever has happened to you, there is an unchanging, divine You always there. Always has been there, always will be there. Lean on this part of you and your breath as you explore, what within myself is being asked to be seen? What perceived flaws, inadequacies, or hurts want to be seen and tended to? The answers to these questions might come as words, but may just come as emotions and feelings beyond description. That is OK, just be with it, loving presence alone can heal.

This Capricorn New Moon that comes on the heels of the solstice reminds us that whatever it is we unearth in the palms of darkness may not be quite as it seems. What you may see as your flaws and shortcomings may actually be part of your brilliance. Dear ones, we are too divine, too radiant to put ourselves into boxes of what we believe we should be for the world. Instead, what is it we must be? Our purpose is not something we find, it is something we are. Therefore, dear ones, you need every bit of you, even those parts you want hidden away in the darkness, to be called forth to fully manifest your purpose. 

How might your wounds, perceived flaws, and inadequacies actually lead you to the roadmap of your purpose? 

We are being so gracefully and compassionately wrapped in darkness, bundled up like a newborn baby, to give us an opportunity to be with our full selves. May we be gentle with ourselves in this time. Change, healing, and purpose do not come through force, but through a love so pure and so brave it rushes toward the most exiled and shamed parts of us and reminds us, these parts, too, are divine.