The Holy Nights
A blog from three years ago, but the sentiment endures!
I know! Many people are happy when the days lengthen, but I am always a little sad when the morning light comes earlier and the sunset stretches the day into the evening. I love the festiveness of Christmas and then the contrasting quiet of the short days after. Naps happen spontaneously, even while reading the book I never get to. The air is crisp, and the earth on the trail, slippery with the latest rain. Early evening often gives way to a long winter’s sleep.
These twelve days of Christmas from December 25 to January 6 are called the Holy Nights. Cultures all over the world celebrate this time of the birth of light. Rudolf Steiner believed that during this time, we can interact with the spirit world and the forces of the earth in special ways¹. You can feel this access in that draw to the in-between states. It is a time for mediation and vision, a time to rest so the spirits can speak. This is the time to set intention for the coming year.
And so I set intention: that our work here will serve the earth and our bodies, that all who reside here, flourish. That we hold the light of love and hope for life on our earth into the new year and beyond.
May you too have a rich and meaningful span of Holy Nights! And may your intentions become your guiding stars!
Patricia and Donald
Harms Vineyards and Lavender Fields
¹”The Season When the Earth is the Most Inwardly Alive: Biodynamic Practice September through March,” by Karen Davis-Brown. Applied Biodynamics, Newsletter of the Josephine Porter Institute. Fall/Winter 2016, Issue No.88. p.13.