Though we gathered with a few friends the night of the Solstice to welcome the return of the light, the days don’t seem measurably longer yet, and the clouds are hanging low this  afternoon.

As the Irish blogger Bridget put it in her post on the longest night, “We need this period of darkness to recoup our energies…spend time with friends and family…to just be. Soon enough we will feel the need to get our hands in the soil and once again plant the seeds and tend the crops.”

This time of year is tailor-made for reflection and dreaming. The deep darkness, the cold and drear outside, the ending of one cycle and the beginning of another. In the midst of holiday bustle, all I’ve wanted to do is pull a blanket up around my chin and stare out the window with a pen in my hand. Or a book. Or just a cup of tea.

Over and over, I find my awareness turning to the heaviness of the physical body and the fact that it really isn’t solid. Neurofeedback researcher Les Fehmi taught me that we are actually just clouds of particles floating in and permeated by a vast space.

And my pen idles. Sometimes more words are not what is needed.