Okay, let's do it.

This is Jay Brown Yoga Talks podcast.

My name is Jay Brown.

Welcome to you, whoever you are, new person, long-time listener, or anywhere in

between. Thank you. I appreciate you being here. How are you holding up? And it's okay if you're not,

or if it's just barely. You know, I was thinking about how in years past, I would

hear someone say, oh, it gets really hard around the holiday times, or this time of year, they

would say. And I would often sort of scoff at that because I have a thing about holidays.

The holidays haven't meant a lot to me necessarily in my life. My family's I would often sort of scoff at that because I have a thing about holidays.

The holidays haven't meant a lot to me necessarily in my life.

My family was never big on them.

I always wonder why we treat these days as special and all the other days is they're not or whatever.

So I've always had like a little bit of a, I don't know, a thing about holidays.

So when people say, oh, holiday time is so stressful, I'm always like, whatever, all the life is stressful, not anymore on holidays. But,

you know, recently, if you've been listening, you know, I've been really on this animism versus

materialism inquiry, and I've been spending a lot more time tuning into what feels to me

like the rhythms and pulses of nature more than I have in the past. And I was feeling this turn into the darkness and thinking,

oh yeah, this time of year is challenging for that reason,

for the subtle qualities that we might experience,

whether it's conscious or not,

in this turn of the cycle,

there's a feeling of going into the darkness.

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