Just on the Other Side of the Darkest Night

Friends,

We are now just on the other side of the winter solstice.

The shift is so subtle you may not even notice it at first. No fireworks. No announcement. Just this quiet truth: after the darkest night of the year, the light begins to return — almost imperceptibly at first — lingering a few seconds longer each day.

That’s how it always works.

If you study any wisdom tradition at its most mature levels — the poets, the prophets, the mystics — they all point back to this same reality. While we crave eureka moments and dramatic breakthroughs, real change rarely arrives that way. What’s beautiful, what’s lasting, what’s true tends to emerge slowly. Patiently. Often invisibly.

Growth doesn’t usually shout. It whispers.

As we move toward a new year and start dreaming about the horizon ahead, here are a few notes worth putting in your pocket:

First: good things take time.

Second: go easy on yourself.

Third: as long as you stay in the game, the sun eventually rises — and clarity follows.

This isn’t just metaphor. This is how physical reality works. Here on Earth, spinning quietly through space, suspended in the vastness of the Milky Way, light always returns. Not all at once. But inevitably.

So if you’re feeling tired… If progress feels slow… If you’re wondering whether anything is actually changing…

Trust this: something already has.

You’re closer to the light than you were yesterday — even if you can’t quite see it yet.

With you in the slow becoming,

Ashton