Summer Solstice Pause

by | Jun 21, 2022 | Uncategorized

The summer solstice is the pause at the top of an inhale. Buoyant, light, bursting with potential. A turning point where we linger between the life that’s been living us, and the release to come. For three days, we’re soaked in radiant awareness of all that is.

The winter solstice holds us still underground. For three days, the exhale is held and we die. Back to dust. Back to the tomb/womb to shed our skins and be reborn. We meet our fear (or full embrace) of loss, death, letting go.

These days of the summer solstice, we meet our fear (or full embrace) of living. 

Get quiet and notice your breath moving in and out. Some believe the breath is the only thing that can travel to all the realms, seen and unseen. It is the precious and miraculous thread that keeps you here on earth with us. 

Feel that achingly delicate silk. How it moves in and out without your control. It just keeps its rhythm, even as you sleep. The seasons spin, with or without your presence.

And notice the pauses between breaths. Let the thread get wider there, fill out. No forcing just allowing the current of your consciousness to flow into the pauses. Fill them with attention and beauty.

Now pay special attention to the pause after inhale. What happens in your body? Do your shoulders tense up to your ears? Does your heart broaden gracefully to the sky? 

And what feelings arise? Do you grasp with nervousness to keep the breath held? As if you’ll never have another inhale? Or do you surrender blissfully into everything? Meeting what arises with curiosity and sweetness?

There’s no separation, you know, between you and the sun. Watch how he pauses audaciously in the sky. He pours his whole life into everything. Nothing held back. He knows he won’t have a chance like this for another lifetime or so. Without effort, just because he is what he is, he lifts everything into brilliant, glowing beauty. 

That pause at the top of your inhale will tell you everything you need to know about your own fear or full embrace of this ridiculous miracle we’re living.