Winter Solstice 2023

             “Return.”  That’s what ancient Chinese sages called the Winter Solstice, when they asked people to cease travel, stay home, and celebrate in warmth.  Coming immediately after “Disintegration” in their system of the I Ching, Return is an especially beautiful moment of peace, one I can now resonate with.  When I started this tradition of Winter Solstice messages, I titled the first one “2020 was Different,”  smiled at the understatement, and was thankfully unaware of what more “different” was still coming in 2021 and ‘22, for me at least.  Ironically, this year that has brought more “disintegration” globally has been one for me personally – finally – that has been less “different.”

It's still had loss – becoming an empty-nester – but at least this time, it’s of the celebratory sort.  And right now, I have both kids home for Christmas for a few weeks – yay!  My son graduated from college, moved into a home he’s leasing with good friends, and secured a great position working for a warm and dedicated legislator at the OR State Capitol.  Three months later, my daughter, now a college sophomore, also moved out into a home she’s leasing with friends, and even took the cat.  I knew I’d miss the kids, but I didn’t realize how much I’d miss the cat!  I plan to find one of my own, but my current work as a substitute teacher lacks the stable routine to introduce a pet, so I’ll wait for the summer.  

When I was asked recently to compare substitute teaching to having my own class, I paused.  Hmm.  It depends on your moment in life.  There is something very special about watching your own students rise into their success.  That moment when their “light” turns on, and they “get it,” and produce something amazing, after you’ve been pumping them up for weeks – “You got this!” – and they don’t think so, and then they finally do and surprise themselves and delight you, is Magic.  For a time, I lived for that Magic.  But I also didn’t get to “leave” work; some of it was always coming home with me.  Itching to write, substituting is now a blessing. 

            As my blog shows, I had been writing while teaching, but it was a constant challenge not only to find the time but also the mental space for it.  Having completed the book I was blogging, “Just like Eve,” I am now working on another behind the scenes.  I hope to show future publishers with this blog, especially “Just like Eve,” they can trust me as an author.

            I had never anticipated when I began “Just like Eve,” quite how much I would identify with my heroine Jasmine, accused of being “just like Eve,” who through her marital shakeup, forbidden love, eviction from church, and her own research into the figure of Eve, even from the biblical story's plain text, and, even more, in its own language, discovers both Eve’s heroism and her own.  Calling the book a “spiritual quest novel,” I also didn’t know how many of my own trials I’d face while I was writing story and how much these trials would teach me about myself, about life, and how to find it in its abundance.

            I’ve seen how hard, yet important, is to maintain honesty through our trials, facing them without pretending “resilience” or blaming anyone else.  When I was brainstorming my 2022 Winter Solstice message in November 2022, I intended a message of hope after loss.  Then on December 2 came the next loss, the fire to the racquet center where I worked, played, and met with friends.  Hadn’t I been through enough?  Of the fire, I recalled that classic ‘90s sitcom and said, “If Cheers went up in fire, Sam and Diane would have lost more than just their jobs.”

The planned optimism of last year’s Winter Solstice message was replaced with one my mom called “too dark.”  “It’s honest” I said, noting that the message already contained my reply: “we need to learn to allow ourselves to enter into the darkness and be honest that we feel it, and that it is hard.”   If I had tried to pretend optimism, I might have found surface peace, but not true peace.  That comes only by way of truth and the type of Return the sages considered the most meaningful: the one that carries us back to our original, truest selves, that self before our culture has conditioned us into something else.

Through this process, including my own trials of “disintegration,” I’ve landed onto something amazing.  There’s a remarkable place of miracles just beyond the five senses, and once you can reliably tap into it and conquer the forces trying to keep you out, you find that peace.  And if you can see your trials as entry points into it, you’ll gain a fresh perspective on everything that happens.  I hope you’ve been discovering this or will soon.  May 2024 be a year when we all come toward peace.

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For any curious about some of these I've learned, here is a capsule from one of my 2023 posts, Letting Go Part 2: Life without Hands:

Humility: when your teenage daughter is bathing you and your college student son is clipping your fingernails, you have to become very humble very quick.

Take nothing for granted: when you celebrate a thumb that works so you can dress yourself, you start to see how much you’ve taken for granted. 

A gentle touch:  You don’t realize how hard your touch can be until every touch brings you pain.  You’re starting to get better, so you’re now opening doors, pressing the walk button at a crosswalk, closing your dresser drawer, shaking someone’s hand, patting your teenager on the back for a job well done, squirting out hand cream, and knocking out those coffee grounds: those things you’ve done every day for years and taken for granted, and now they bring pain.  You wonder if your touch has been too hard, and then you wonder if your speech has been too hard, and if you need to seek a more gentle way to touch, to speak, and to live.

Forgive yourself:  You were foolish and you fell.  Now forgive yourself and learn.

Release yourself from other people’s expectations: there are those who think you should heal fast and get back to life.  But your body knows, and it tells you.  Listen to your body and set yourself free from those who think they know your body better than you do.

Show compassion: If you find yourself impatient with anyone, remember they might have just fallen.  Maybe they can’t use their hands.  Maybe there’s something else they can’t do that you can’t see.  Show compassion.

Slow down!  You’ve forgiven yourself – good.  But if you don’t want to re-injure yourself, slow down!

Let Go!  No matter where you are, where you’ve been, how hard you’ve fallen, nor how stupid you were when you fell, let it all go.

© 2023 by Karina Jacobson.  All rights reserved.  Please use with permission and/or a link to this blog post.