Winter Solstice, At the Edge of Darkness

Yesterday was the shortest day of the year. Winter Solstice is that threshold when darkness reaches its fullness and light begins quietly to return. The days leading up to the Solstice, it feels like the darkness will never let go. It grips tightly, refusing to surrender.

We all pass through thresholds where darkness lingers, a familiar phase of our inner life that casts shadows across our days. Centurions guard our fears and our body tenses under the weight of old patterns, perceived failures and a tightness where unspoken emotions and buried stories like to hide. We clench our jaw, tighten our shoulders and pull up our defenses. Our demons linger. The weight can feel heavy.

Have you been there? That edge where all you feel you have left is prayer? Something wants to end. And you know it has to for something new to be born. The struggle is real. As a spiritual guide, I see people standing at this edge—the relationship ends, the physical issue that feels relentless, the trauma that haunts someone's every move. The grief that clings to us when we lose someone we love dearly.

I've recognized this pattern in my own life too. Those same centurions have stood watch. Over time it became clear what they were guarding—it wasn't safety, but fear itself. They kept it alive, the old stories fresh. The old cycle turning and turning collapsing in on itself. And yet my soul longed for the spiral of light to open, for the dawn to reappear.

This is the work: staying open, allowing ourselves to be seen, to move past the guard dogs and towards what wants to emerge.

Our heart’s journey is all about the break. Where does the darkness let go? Where do the centurions decide to take leave? Often it happens when we’ve had enough. We too are done. The cost of guarding becomes greater than the risk of opening.

I've learned to let my guards rest. To feel the fear and stay open anyway. To trust that my heart knows something my head has forgotten—that it’s worth the risk of being seen, that protection has its own price, that choosing possibility over certainty is how we let light in.

And on the threshold of surrender, the cycles change. The wheel of fortune turns. The shadow side bows gently, making space for what wants to return. At the edge of darkness, there is always light.