A Grounding for Tender Hearts in Loud Times
Not everyone feels at home in this season.
Some move through the holidays carrying secrets.
Quiet truths that joy does not arrive on command,
that belonging is never guaranteed,
and that the world’s scripts were perhaps never written with them in mind.
For anyone who lives with that truth,
there is a place for you in the stillness of the natural world.
Take a breath that belongs only to you,
a breath that fills you,
and let your body remember the earth’s steady rhythm beneath all the glitter and noise.
So much of this time has become performance,
lights of every color, everywhere, and rehearsed cheer filling every room,
with the wider unrest around us only adding that much more to the noise.
Rituals polished until the quiet parts disappear.
There is no requirement to follow any of it.
There is no need to pretend the celebration fits.
Honoring the turning of the seasons
can be simple and real:
a candle lit like a small hearth flame,
a moment spent where bare branches etch the sky,
a cup warming tired hands.
And if you find yourself in solitude, let yourself sit in it.
If grief follows, allow it and let it rest, a reminder of all that has been carried.
If other tender things rise, let them have their place without apology.
There is no being outside the sacred.
There is simply finding it from within.
Some move through the holidays carrying secrets.
Quiet truths that joy does not arrive on command,
that belonging is never guaranteed,
and that the world’s scripts were perhaps never written with them in mind.
For anyone who lives with that truth,
there is a place for you in the stillness of the natural world.
Take a breath that belongs only to you,
a breath that fills you,
and let your body remember the earth’s steady rhythm beneath all the glitter and noise.
So much of this time has become performance,
lights of every color, everywhere, and rehearsed cheer filling every room,
with the wider unrest around us only adding that much more to the noise.
Rituals polished until the quiet parts disappear.
There is no requirement to follow any of it.
There is no need to pretend the celebration fits.
Honoring the turning of the seasons
can be simple and real:
a candle lit like a small hearth flame,
a moment spent where bare branches etch the sky,
a cup warming tired hands.
And if you find yourself in solitude, let yourself sit in it.
If grief follows, allow it and let it rest, a reminder of all that has been carried.
If other tender things rise, let them have their place without apology.
There is no being outside the sacred.
There is simply finding it from within.
Photograph: Winter's sun brings hope, North Nottingham, NH
