Sacred Darkness

Biocentrism means being attentive to natural cycles

I’m Max Wilbert, the co-author of Bright Green Lies: How the Environmental Movement Lost Its Way and What We Can Do About It and co-founder of Protect Thacker Pass. Welcome to Biocentric, a newsletter about sustainability, greenwashing, and resistance. If you want to follow this newsletter, you can subscribe. Almost all the writing I publish here is free, but paid subscribers support my writing and organizing and receive occasional behind-the-scenes reports and unreleased drafts.

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For those of us living in the northern hemisphere, today is the winter solstice: the moment when the earth is tilted furthest from the sun.

The shortest day and longest night of the year.

It goes by many names: midwinter, Yaldā, Donghzi. Astronomical holidays have long been celebrated, from the Kogi of Columbia who build their ceremonial structures aligned with the solstice sunbeams to the ancient Celts, who did likewise at Stonehenge.

The winter is a time of turning inwards: of hibernation; of dying. This evening, as the long night gathers, I am unwell. A cough lingers in my lungs, and I can’t muster the energy to walk more than a mile or two through the woods. The sluggishness in my body mirrors the thick fog. All I want is a cup of tea and a blanket. My body is speaking: “The time for action will come. But for now, rest.”

Only in our modern world have we turned away from the wisdom of bodies and sun, subsuming yule into the mad rush of Christmas and forgetting the solstice. But the body remembers.

Tonight, darkness falls deeper than any night this year. Step outside. Breathe in the chill air, and give thanks for the cold. Sleep deeply. Today marks the turning. A long winter is here, and then spring will come again.