“Peace can become a lens through which you see the world. Be it. Live it. Radiate it out. Peace is an inside job.” — Wayne Dyer.
The rains came through recently and washed everything clean so that there is the clarity of crystalline light making all around me shine brilliantly!
I love the marking of time through the journey of seasons each year. In another few days, on Tuesday, December 21, we will experience the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of daylight and the longest night of the year.
Known as “midwinter,” Solstice actually means “the sun stands still.” Winter Solstice is when the Sun appears to reverse direction in the northern hemisphere, and a new solar cycle begins. It marks the end of one year and the beginning of another. It happens at the exact instant moment for all of us, everywhere on Earth.
Our ancestors lived in harmony with the Earth’s cycles with this simple truth.
The annual cycle of the Sun’s orbit around our planet has been celebrated since ancient times. The importance the Sun’s passing of time was emphasized during the seasonal solstice celebrations. Rituals and celebrations ensured our continued existence as a species.
We are all connected to something far more significant than ourselves. On a grand cosmic scale, a Solstice moment is a pivotal transformational moment in time. As the dividing point between seen and unseen, known and unknown, or time-bound and timelessness thins, we are invited to explore the dark shadows and the brilliant light held inside our psyches.
Winter Solstice is an invitation to evolve oneself and reclaim your bright spark intentionally. During this solstice transition (about a week before and after that actual Solstice event), you have an awe-inspiring opportunity to align yourself with this energy.
These few weeks are an energetic time of expanded soul remembering, re-awakening wholistic connection with all of life, reaffirming relations, and gently letting go of everything that is in your way of becoming.
Serenity in the time of Busyness
We can forget how the body is the temple for our sacred self through the whirlwind of activity. When stress and overwhelm are at their peak, it’s hard to stop and regroup, find your center, and be authentically present. This isn’t easy when we are preparing for Holiday festivities with family and close friends.
Distractions come in all forms during this season, and for women, finishing last-minute shopping, caring for others, entertaining work colleagues, or attending Holiday parties often precludes caring for self. Worries about Covid, aging parents, and still showing up with presence niggles in the back of our thoughts.
Adjusting to this seasonal event, you may feel vulnerable as your life force draws inward. If you are like me, my body longs for a time-out-of-time so I can rest in the fermenting dark soil of transformation.
Summoned to connect to the profound essence of wholeness, honoring personal moments of self-care can be achieved through meditation and ritual practice. In the dark, fertile soil of winter, I am nudged to connect to the authentic spark or my soul to retrieve unwavering support, renew intuitive guidance, and recover instinctive wisdom.
Ensuring that I am well rested and have dedicated time spent in stillness and silence is crucial to supporting a healthy functioning foundation for being happy, vibrant, energized, and productive.
Shanti is the Peace we all Benefit from
A pleasing and easy way to consistently enhance serenity in this season is by using flower essence aromatherapy. This is the time to pause, breathe, and drop into your sacred center with Fleur Shanti Serenity Oil.
Shanti Serenity Body Oil alchemical synergy blend is formulated with a proprietary combination of vibrational flower essences, and organic essential oils of Lavender, Neroli, Myrrh, Clary Sage, and Melissa in a base of Jojoba oil and Bourbon Vanilla infused oil.
I created this blend to help quickly encourage a parasympathetic response to an overactive nervous system and feelings of restlessness. I love the peaceful feeling I get when I use Shanti Serenity Oil. My whole body relaxes as I inhale this lovely relaxing aroma and apply the oil to various touchpoints on my skin.
Essential Oils and States of Consciousness
Due to the organic essential oils I chose to blend for this formula and their fusion with skin-nourishing jojoba oil, Shanti Serenity Oil is greater than the sum of its parts.
Each essential oil in Shanti Serenity Oil has a complex aroma with unique properties that serve different but complimenting purposes.
The following essential oils have many physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual benefits. Lavender, Neroli, Myrrh, Clary Sage, Mellissa, and Vanilla not only will ground you during Solstice, together their fusion also opens the psyche to higher states of consciousness.
Neroli essential oil is made from the flowers of the bitter orange tree. Its light yet complex aroma has a way of getting into the hidden recesses of your psyche to illuminate those shadows to impart a lightness of being.
Most of the medicinal properties of Neroli essential oil match those of other citrus essential oils. But its unique chemical composition also has profound calming qualities for the nervous system, making it a useful oil to combat anxiety and sleeplessness.
Myrrh essential oil contains a high concentration of sesquiterpenes, a chemical component that directly affects the pituitary, hypothalamus, and amygdala, which are the seat of our emotions. Sesquiterpenes play an important role in helping us remain calm and balanced.
Ancient cultures used Myrrh as a sacred anointing oil for thousands of years to shift mind-body states of consciousness during religious ceremonies. Myrrh essential oil helps with recovery from intense emotions that come from trauma, stress, and feelings of overwhelm.
Myrrh’s woody aroma is warm, slightly bitter, uplifting, purifying, and restorative. Emotionally and energetically, Myrrh softens extreme emotions, encouraging patience and awareness, peace in spirit, mind, and body.
Melissa, also known as lemon balm, has been used as an herb in traditional health practices in Europe for centuries and has many uses. Most notably, it provides powerful support to the nervous and immune systems and promotes healthy cellular function.
Not only does it work wonders for the body, but as an essential oil, its warm, herbaceous aroma also is an amazing penetrator of the deep layers of the human psyche to help restore mental lucidity and to deeply relax the nervous system. The essential oil is excellent for uplifting one’s spirits and assists in discarding any emotions relating to mental pain and suffering.
Vanilla is widely credited with the soothing scent we are all familiar with. Its aroma creates positive associations with home and safety. The slightly intoxicating sweet aroma of vanilla evokes feelings of warmth and happiness eliciting happy memories to bring home comforting emotions of belonging as well as sensual pleasure.
Bringing the Sacred Home
Not all Winter Solstice rituals are ancient. By practicing self-care rituals and observing what arises from your own inner depths, you give yourself the gift of bringing the Sacred into your life.
As the Sun inherently withdraws its outward energy, we are also drawn inward to prepare ourselves for the coming year. In the stillness of Winter Solstice, we have an opportunity to become receptive, present, and aware.
It is a beautiful time of the year to let go of past hardships and make space for new beginnings. It is a time for reflection, contemplation, and seeking quiet serenity as you wish peace upon the world.
When you take time to connect with yourself from a quieter place within, look and listen with soft receptivity, you’ll discover a vibrant inner world full of resources. Not only will your wisdom guide you through the season, these wisdoms help you clarify your intentions for the coming year.
The alchemical synergy of Shanti Serenity Oil is enhanced by adding human touch – either with oneself or with another. Invite your family and friends to join you. Use the Oil to anoint yourself or your loved one as you come together to celebrate sacred moments with your family or tribe. Say aloud words of appreciation with each person to honor their presence in your life.
Both meditation and prayer tap into the subtle channels of the mind and can help to re-pattern even our most habituated responses to challenging situations. Shanti Serenity Oil has the power to enhance your meditation practice.
Breathe in the aroma of Shanti Serenity Oil to restore your sense that even with all of life’s unavoidable stresses and struggles, you are intentionally filling yourself with the gift of a peaceful, calm, and untroubled presence. Honoring your breath, acknowledge that your breath circulates light and energy, calms the nervous system, and awakens an aware, conscious presence.
Luxuriate with 20 pumps of Shanti Serenity Oil added to your ritual Sea of Life bathwater. Light a candle, visualize all your worries, stresses, and fears dissolving as you soak. Rest and dream in the safety of moist darkness as you call forth the inner gifts you wish to rebirth in the spring.
Once you’ve finished your bath, quietly acknowledge what you have just released down the drain and back to the Earth. Affirm your unique journey lighted by your own authentic spark by speaking aloud or writing about what you discovered.
Winter Solstice’s most profound potential is the power to connect and re-connect the soul. When spirit, mind, and body are seamlessly synchronized, there is a distinct sense that home is in wholeness, in the here and now.
And when there is enough energy, there is an embodied abundance of serene, sweet, calming presence to offer to those you love.
May you embody the serenity and peace you seek this Winter Solstice.
All my aromatic love,
Vidya
