With light changes, temperature changes, and political changes, December can add up to a kind of stress that strikes at the core of your health, your flexibility and your resilience. Rapid and intense changes can simply overwhelm your capacity to respond flexibly or to find resources for resilience when needed. So, I’d like to invite you to join me in a little three-week practice to build your resources and enhance your flexibility for the Winter months. Resources + Flexibility = Strong Immunity and in the face of our current pandemic building strong immunity seems a high priority, does it not?
Starting tomorrow, December 1 and continuing through December 21, I’ll be making some new relationships with light and dark, eating a bit differently, prioritizing meditation, gentle exercise and getting lots and lots of rest. The schedule of my days will be determined entirely by sunrise and sunset in my location. I’ll be making sure I am sitting by the window when the sun rises accompanied by my morning drink (more on that in a minute) and sitting by the window when the sun sets accompanied by my evening drink (more on that in a minute too) taking at least 15 minutes and up to an hour to be with the sun as it appears and disappears each day. I might even be sitting on the porch or out in the yard to get a maximum dose of the low, slow sun that December brings in the Northern hemisphere.
The other half of that sun worship is also reverence for the darkness. I’ll be turning off all overhead lights after sunset and retiring from any digital media after the sun goes down. Using table lamps and candlelight, emphasizing human interaction such as speaking, singing, listening, touching, nourishes the yin of your body, heart and mind. The dark time is the ideal time to grow your capacity to be with others in a way that is not about information, stimulation or work, but instead is about nourishing through just being with yourself and others. Other suitable evening activities include bathing, reading non-digital media by table light that only illuminates your page, yoga, meditation or making love. Allowing your body to really receive the darkness is critical to your overall health, it is the flip side of all the doing you might usually do, but is actually building your capacity for doing going forward.
As to the eating and drinking, all of my eating will be happening during daylight hours. This will be a challenge but it is a worthy one, offering the body a good long rest from the work of digestion (from sunset to sunrise each day) so that it can do the work of clearing away any accumulations that might burden your body for the Winter. Your body does most of the work of healing, repair and preparing for elimination during the night, during your resting hours. If you work after dark, eat after dark or use the lights that simulate daylight after dark, you will send the message to keep your body in activity mode, depriving it of the time needed to prioritize repairs or elimination. You may be suitably surprised and impressed by both how well you sleep and how energized you feel when you awaken if you eat this way.
My morning drink will be cocoa (as many of you know it usually is). I load my cocoa with good fats and protein from bone broth so that it gives a beautiful but not over-stimulating start to the day. My body is eased into activity and my brain is well nourished for thinking with all the good fats. My evening drink will be an after dinner tea, sometimes ginger, sometimes lemon balm, sometimes rooibos, warm water with or without lemon, but something without caffeine and with antioxidant or anti-viral properties. It is good to simply drink warm water if nothing else to support your dark time. Nourishing the fluids allows the body to do more eliminating and increases the depth of your rest.
I’d love it if you’d join me in nourishing yourself in this way! I’d also love to support you with daily inspirations and a special invitation to a day of meditation and celebration on December 20th.
