The Turning of the Sun

“...This is the solstice, the still point
of the sun, its cusp and midnight,
the year’s threshold
and unlocking, where the past
lets go of and becomes the future;
the place of caught breath, the door
of a vanished house left ajar...”

― Margaret Atwood, Eating Fire: Selected Poetry 1965-1995

Today sees the turning of the sun.  From days with shorter daylight hours, we now begin to see longer hours of daylight.  Today marks the beginning of winter, the beginning of a new year.  A day of hope for the coming year, for ourselves and others.  As quickly as it goes away, it returns.

Life is a cycle.  We are born, we live, we die.  It is that bit between the entrance and exit that makes our lives meaningful.  How we live.  What we do.  Where we put our attention.

I would also say, it is who we help.  Do we only help ourselves?  Or do we also help others?  Yes, self care is a thing - follow the rule of the air - when the oxygen masks drop, put yours on first.  But then what do you do?  Do you help the person beside you who may be panicking because they hate to fly in the first place but had to for work or a family emergency?  Do you hold their hand?

If you have 'enough', do you share the excess?  Do you hold the door for the person behind you?  Stand aside to let the person approaching laden with bags go by on a narrow sidewalk?

Do you make space for others?  Do you accept them into your orbit? 

People have challenges and struggles that other folk know nothing about.  I suggest that in this coming of the light we also remember to be kind.