I am not ready to get back to it - whatever it is.
But just beginning to find some slowness and stillness in my body.
After crawling through the portal of the Winter Solstice and into the festiveness of things.
The last two days actually feel like winter here.
The ground is frozen.
The stars shine extraordinary at night.
I can feel a gentle connection in my body with the land around me.
A slow synching.
The sun made me sing this morning
As it warmed my face through the kitchen window.
I was clutching a hot mug of tea and it was so bright and white and everything was glorious.
I came across a pair of buzzards basking in the sun on the crest of the hill as I approached the woods with my dog.
They let me get strangely close before spreading wings and gliding up into an Ash tree.
I’m just starting to feel an interest in reflecting on what was and what might be.
The year gone by and the one beginning.
Just a stirring of curiosity.
Over the last few years I’ve given up setting new year intentions and goals and in and out lists for the start of January.
It just doesn’t feel true to me.
I’m suspicious of the rush to get going.
It smells colonial.
I am always still full.
Of the year that has been
All the contradictions, confusion, joy, grief and possibility,
They’re still there
Quieter and calmer but not yet properly examined
And given perspective.
And so needing to create space
For reflecting and composting.
What threads to trust, follow and hang onto this year?
What to let go of ?
Preparing the ground for new emergings
And that can’t happen fast.
With integrity
It needs time.
As winter does.
I struggle with goals in the dark.
And this is dark time.
Maybe its my age.
I want to dig deeper,
To wallow for longer in liminal space
To get to know the darkness more intimately,
And thoroughly compost some shit
Of what was.
And to dream slowly and creatively into seeds
Of what could be.
To experiment, play and mess about a bit
Slowly.
To stroll in the woods
Collect kindling
Light fires
And candles.
Make soup.
Rest under blankets.
Listening to Earth
Noticing.
Plotting gradually.
With Mystery
Emerging steadily from the dark around Imbulc.
So I am writing with two winter offerings for you.
Two invitations to step into the dark
The first is a new Earth Sessions mix:
Into the Dark - a deep, slow, wintery, sonic meander, through ambient electronic melancholy into deep house.
Sounds and tracks that I’m finding connection and curiosity with in these darker, colder times of breakdown, reflection, exploration and dreaming towards the light.
If you’re new here, Dan Solo is the DJ name that I’ve gone by since the early 90’s. I was semi-pro till my early thirties, but then stuff happened and that’s another story!
But music and dancing has remained constant for me, it’s often how I feel my way through this world, process stuff, work things out, move through darkness.
I find connection and community and medicine in music and movement.
I’ve started playing out again of late. I put together ‘Earth Sessions’ mixes for the podcast every few months- there’s quite a few in the archive going back years.
Available here on Apple Podcast and Soundcloud.
If you walk with it, run with it, sit with it, drive with it, cook with it.
Dance with it.
I hope you enjoy it.
The second offering is an invitation to join our next practice community learning adventure
Into the Dark
( notice the theme ?)
This is the third year we’re hosting this journey and it really is a magical adventure.
Personally this has now become the only way to prepare the ground and surface my intentions for the year ahead.
Three years ago we began by asking:
How do we set intentions in a world that is unravelling ?
How to be in a world that no longer exists in the ways we thought it did ?
How useful is my ‘intention data’ that I'm working with ?
How ‘true’ is the 'reality' that I'm operating in ?
How to trust myself in a culture overwhelmed with dis-information ?
Can I really trust my intentions through just writing them down ?
- Where are they actually coming from ?
- Whose purposes are they serving ?
- What is really mine to do this year ?
And if we are entangled relational beings, then these are not just my intentions are they ?
So we started developing a slower co-creative approach:
- This involves seeking input from Earth, from ancestors, from land and more than human relationships
- Working with connection to place, with myth, story and creative practice
- And doing it together in community with a crew of fellow curious humans
Embracing and honouring the dark part of the year intentionally and slowly
- As a time for shedding and letting go of what no longer serves
- Of connecting with a wider entangled web of intelligence
- And surfacing seeds of possibility for the year ahead
The journey is surprising, powerful, nourishing and what emerges is new knowledge that has been co-created and yet feels deeply personal.
Insight you can trust and call on beyond any list I’ve ever written.
We emerge as a crew carrying this intelligence mid February as the light returns, which feels much more like the time for beginnings.
So maybe you are ready to travel into the dark with me and my fellow guides Mark Sears and Ally Kingston who joins us for this adventure as Evva begins her Motherhood journey
We’d love to welcome you into the crew.
Wherever you are I hope you find some peace in these darker times
Dan
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