How to work with Winter Solstice energy. If the summer we have the most yang (fire) energy, in the winter our yang is the weakest. We simply can’t do as much and need to protect the warmth in the body. Slowing down in winter gives us space to embrace our inner life.

Every week in the middle of my dance class I love offering my basket of angel cards to my students with the invitation to pick one. By that point in the class, everyone is so much more relaxed and energized than when they walked in the door. Each card in the basket has one word on it, and we use the cards to help us attune to the qualities coming through us as we dance.

Cue the moment of hushed anticipation, the hope that it’ll be an especially juicy card….

Years ago, I shared a story about my mom on stage at The Riverview Theater as a part of a Listen To Your Mother Twin Cities Holiday Show. The story detailed my family's Christmas Eve traditions, some of my most treasured childhood memories, each one the artful work of my mother.

In one of the dances featured in the article, we draw a little circle with our right foot. That small gesture became so much more than a little circle to me.

Recover the natural rhythm of rest, dreaming, and renewal that comes with the night.

It can be so hard to rest when we feel like we need to do more, be more, or get more. You may be unconscious of how powerful this voice of insufficiency is until you recognize how very hard it is to stop.

This 10 minute Qigong practice for Self-Acceptance kicks off my night-themed videos in the Creative Nature Qigong Meditations series. The darkest nights will continue through January and I want all of us to get maximum benefit of this season of rest.

Ultimately, I love seasons not because they are each so beautiful (although I do comment on that a lot), but because they help me move with the ups and downs of life. Seasons help me understand how to work even better with creative spurts and time devoted to caregiving or rest. They are a dance, and we can dance with them.

An insightful someone recently shared this poem with a Circle I’m part of, then asked us to consider our sorrows, and the truths that our darkness reveals. What is your list of sorrows? What truth is revealed in your darkness?