For the Coming Solstice

An hour ago, I walked the neighborhood streets, on the last dog walk before bed.  I scanned the sky for the two-days-past-full moon...and did not see her.  She is only just now tingeing orange the clouds above the roof of the Fred Meyer at the end of the block. 

I did see that the northwest sky was still a translucent  teal...and it hit me that the solstice is only days away.  I began to ponder how I might conduct my solstice ritual this season.

It's become habit, now, that a large part of my ritual revolves around setting aside "things that no longer serve."  And the list seems to get longer and longer, even while the things I attempt to set aside never seem to stay away for good.  Or even for more than a few days.  As I desultorily began to call up the list, a voice inside my head asked:

"Why?"

Why does it have to be about stripping away, setting aside, peeling off the layers until there's nothing left but bleached bones?

Isn't that what aging is all about anyway?  Isn't that what makes getting older sad and frustrating...the losses?  Of friends, of family, of agility, of abilities...of dreams and promise?  Why do I have to go out of my way every six months to come up with even more things that I can and should live without?

And a little voice answered:

"It doesn't have to be that, you know."

There's no reason in the world why your solstice can't be about adding things to your life.  Things that will serve. Things that will grow you, will expand your universe, rather than shrink it.  Read a book, take a class, climb a trail, make a friend.  Hold out your hand to people, to the wind, to the waves.  Open yourself and see what fills you. 

No more emptying.  No more setting aside.  No more throwing the bad things in the fire; the fire that never seems to end them.

Not this time, anyway.   

This is to be the season of fulfilling, not of emptying.  Of adding, not subtracting.  Of growing.  Not shrinking.

I am SO ready.