Find your enchanted places

and visit often

To the winds of the north, Mother Earth – may we welcome your energy and your power as winter’s stillness spreads across the land – an energy that brings clarity, boundaries, and precision. May your gift of stillness give us strength to cut away what is no longer needed. To say yes and no when each is called for. To rise into what stillness can offer.

That passage is from Just Wild Enough—and though winter solstice is three weeks out yet, snow has arrived as December begins here in Minnesota. It’s projected to be -14 overnight in a few days, so I think it’s fair to say Earth has decided to lean into winter early where I’m at, at least this year. So, welcome, energy of the north.

I got out on nordic skis for the first time today, and last night my spouse skied down the slope in the woods near the house while my 13 year old and I wandered under the fairy lights that he put up before the snow fell. December is a dark month, night rising earlier and earlier, so creating an enchanted forest seemed like a good idea to increase opportunities for outdoor time after work and school. I probably won’t nordic ski down it (probably a bad plan…but maybe I’ll try going up if I’m feeling very motivated) but snow shoeing and basking in the glow with cold air on my face? Yes. People driving by on the road adjacent to the slope probably wonder what’s going on, so we just turn the lights on when we’ll be out there. Anyway, I’m a fan.

Find¹ your enchanted places

and visit often enough

to reclaim any magic

that’s gone missing.²

Of course, you don’t need to hang lights or ski through trees in the dark to reclaim your magic. We all have different ways of navigating the dark and cold season, so think about what yours might be. Maybe it’s visiting a stream that runs cold and clear all season to listen to the persistence of flowing water. Maybe it’s watching birds at the feeder and admiring their capacity to weather any element. Maybe it’s writing letters by candlelight or long chats with someone you care about. Maybe it’s taking a hot sauna after snowshoeing around a local park as a study in contrast. Maybe it’s steeping some tea and sitting by the fire wrapped in a blanket. Whatever it is for you, make sure you get enough to keep you going while we await the return of the light. Remember that magic can be reclaimed by the smallest of acts, by ordinary rituals, by being fully in the moment, even if just now and then.

In December, nights are long in the north, even while commercialized holiday cheer tries to keep things bright and quickly paced. December can feel like a walk through the dark (at least on this side of the world).

But there is an opportunity in these dark days to savor the little rituals that keep us grounded in what’s important, those ceremonies of the ordinary that are always within reach. Those little enchantments that keep magic alive and wonder within reach. What are yours going to be this month?

One option you may wish to consider, as we move through December, is to visit Interfaith Alignment’s Calendar of Light. I’ll have an offering behind one of the doors later in the month.

Join people around the world who are centering their day in a practice of peace. As we engage in the ongoing work of seeking peace in a world scarred by war, pain, and loss, we turn to the wisdom of our world’s many traditions. Each door opens to a short daily practice of peace and light from a different tradition.

This is a collaboration in which all traditions are honored and all prayers uplifted, in the hope that the intersections we create together might help pave the path to greater peace among all the peoples and nations of this world. In these shared practices, may we find the road to justice and healing.

One more look at the enchanted forest, looking down.

The spirituality of stillness

What if silence
is much more than
the absence of noise

is a rooting down
is a looking way up
is a quality of being

that isn’t free of sound
but rather a space to exist
more fully grounded

in the possibility of who
you truly are, a way to witness
your full self being born?

1. Or create

2. Poem found in Slouching Toward Radiance; and The spirituality of stillness, found at the end of the article, is found in Just Wild Enough.