It has felt a bit manic around my house of late – school going right up until December 22 eats up a lot of time to “prepare” for the festive season, we have family coming, concerts, I have a bunch of deadlines I’m trying to clear out of the way so I can enjoy the holidays. Cue primal scream. I’m sure your plates feel full too.

I’ve had to run hard with the theme of “it’s fine, whatever we do is enough” to get through these past few weeks, and be able to sink into the enjoyment of the Papa Josh led Christmas concert (AMAZING!!! Bravo Signal Hill PAC for that stroke of genius!) and my kiddo’s piano concert and just enjoying the lights around town and stopping by local businesses for last minute gifts and thinking how much I love this place. Enough. Christmas tree hunt with the guests, in the pouring rain, two days before Christmas? It will be a memorable adventure. Last minute food prep? All hands on deck. Modest gifts? It’s enough. Floor needing a vacuum and sink needing a scrub. It’s fine. It’s enough.

It is on theme with the season to be letting things go… The deep dark of winter, the solstice, the turning point of the solar year, occurred last night at 7:30pm, according to some post I saw on Facebook and haven’t fact-checked. All that belongs to the previous year, is done, now. Is an offering to Time. The light has been waning, the nights growing longer and longer until last night. Now, we shift, subtly, into a new solar year, moving gradually closer to the light. (Well, it feels gradual for us, but the planet is moving at 107,000 kilometers per hour, so in some ways, we’re really rocketing back towards the high point of summer, and honestly, life does feel sometimes like I’ve been jettisoned by a slingshot.)

All to say, it’s fine. What we have done was our very best, in the circumstances, and it was enough. Offer it up to Time and the dark. The magic of the dark is that it is profoundly regenerative. It turns all into compost and feeds the new things yet to come.

Let it be.

I’ve appreciated the teachings of winter solstice since Natalie Rousseau first introduced me to the idea that the year can be thought of as a long inhale and exhale, and here we are at the very bottom of the exhale, about to sip at the fresh new air… but celebrating it, with a lantern parade (good luck Ruth Fitzell, it’s a beautiful idea and I hope you can navigate all the event-planning hoops to bring this to town next year), or a fire, or a ceremony, or a gathering with friends, turned out to be one of the things culled from that almighty to-do list. I didn’t even really have time to lament that, last night…

And then, a knock at the door.

Both in our pyjamas, me self-conscious about being braless, my partner and I argued over who would deal with this interruption…

And it was a dear friend, stopping by, in the midst of her own frantic life, before picking up a kid, simply to drop off a solstice candle… with an invitation to go sit outside for a minute and appreciate the flickering light.

Insert reverent pause. Quiet moment of appreciation and awe and gratitude.

The smallest gestures are often the ones that have the biggest impact. This one will ripple through time, and into the coming days, for me.

I hope the small moments carry you, over the coming days, too.

May you feel at ease in your own enoughness, just as you are.