Sunsets & winter solstice
We’re gliding silently through the darkest days of winter. I began writing this before the solstice, but set it down and have just picked it back up a week later. I still marvel at the sunrises every morning and light candles in the evening as the house dims. Interestingly, the sun is still rising later here in Colorado every morning and will for another 10 days, until January 7th, when it then moves back the other direction. But it’s sunsets pull my attention even more – something about the transition to night is more appealing to me. You’re not abruptly pulled into the day, thinking of your schedule and to-do list. Instead, after sunset you get to relax into the evening which ends in a trip into your dreams. The winter solstice and this time of year feels a bit like a sunset to me — quick reflection on the past, and a moment where you can sink into your dreams for the coming year.
I know many people feel they have to endure the winter months. The cold, the dark – they long for warmth and summer. For longer days full of sunshine. But there is something about this time of year that feels so magical to me.
Winter, for me, is cozy and invites quiet moments of reflection while at the same time pulling me to be creative – wishing, dreaming, and planning for the year ahead. We, of course, turn the calendar over to a new year shortly after the winter solstice and holidays. But I’ve always wondered if I feel an even stronger sense of renewal with an early-January birthday as well. It is, indeed, a fresh new year for me on this planet, another lap around the sun completed.
The long nights and darkness embody a time of transition. It’s as though I’ve been given permission to let go of things I don’t want in my life anymore. Making space in my mind and in my life, like cleaning out the back of my closet. I can finally see the floor again, and it feels refreshing, light, and calm. All the while the sparks of excitement, about what could be, pop before my eyes begging for attention. What will the coming year bring – there are endless possibilities. It’s hard to fathom and yet tugs at my heart and makes me smile even as I write this sentence.
At 4:30pm, when the sun slips behind the mountains leaving the moon to rise, I watch the sky soften. Dark blue trims the horizon across fields of snow, then it fades into a pale purple-ish pink and above that an orange-yellow glow. Did you know that sunsets actually stretch and hold their color longer this time of year?
Winter sunsets, and the days around the winter solstice, is like that moment you close your eyes at night and begin dreaming, aware of your relaxed body still under the covers and yet your mind is wandering away into another landscape. Here in the twilight hour, of the day… and of the year, I feel like I could leap into my hopes for the future, leaving behind the worries and faults of yesterday.
This post was especially inspired by two recent walks. Our first (very late) snow in Boulder in early December, which coincided with a full moon, and my winter solstice walk. Check out my Instagram (link above) for pics.
