Some time ago I had a role in my Jungian Society of the person sending Christmas cards. When I was doing it for the first time and looked at the long addresses list, for a moment I didn’t know what to do. „What should I wish to people about whom I know so little, I sometimes don’t know their cultures, I am not sure what religious traditions are important to them? How is it possible to embrace in short sentences what someone far away from me could wish for himself or herself during this season of the year?” I wondered. And suddenly I thought that there is one thing, that connects different traditions during this special time. It is a change, our eternal longing for a change, for sudden solution that comes to us when we are in the situation that is impossible to resolve, for the light in the darkness, the seed that awaits the moment when it can rise and give birth to a new beginning in our life.
In Jungian psychology we believe that the deepest change takes place when we are able to embrace polarities, contain inner conflicts and avoid the pressure to choose „this or that”. This new beginning, „a third way”, emerges where there was no solution before. It is a kind of turning point, our own inner „solstice” that comes as the result of the long time of inner struggles, sometimes when we almost lost the hope for a change.
I always think about this kind of change at the end of the year, when the light slowly disappears and everything around goes still. The beautiful symbolism of this period of the year reminds us about the natural rhythms – the new life is born, and fulfils the old prophecies, the light is born in darkness, it keeps on burning, although there is only a little fuel left.
Sometimes Christmas time is not easy for us. We enter it after months of continuous work, we feel lonely, as there is no one around us, or we miss dear to us that left, sometimes we are torn apart with the inner conflicts trying to fulfil family obligations. At such times we especially long for the change, the inner solstice, that could light up for us new attitudes, show us the new directions and new beginning.
This is why, no matter what tradition is close to your heart, I would like to wish you the inner solstice, that could give you the experience of the inner light and the hope for the turning point. Let this time of the year light up your days with the fire coming from the depth of the psyche.
On behalf of e-jungian.com Editors
Małgorzata Kalinowska
Editor-In-Chief
Tags: solstice, transformation
