The Midnight Hour

One of my teachers often led us out of Savasana by describing those final resting moments as “after the end and before the beginning.”

What a gorgeous way of articulating the liminal space, that in-between time when one thing has ended and another has yet to begin.

This is where we’ve arrived in the cycle of the year. The solstice, derived from a root meaning “standing still,” marks a turning point. It’s when the sun’s movement appears to stop ever so briefly - like the pause in the swing a pendulum – before reversing course.

Yoga prepares us well to capture this tiny space of stillness and embrace the opportunity it presents.

We encounter it in the emptiness at the end of the exhalation, in the silence following an utterance of Om, in the pause between postures, and, as my teacher pointed out, in the deep rest at the end of class.

The invitation of today is to lean into the fertile emptiness of the pause and prepare the inner ground to receive newly planted seeds of intention and vision.  

Honoring the rich and generative darkness in the space between is a powerful way to open to what’s waiting to unfold through you, and for you, in the weeks and months to come.