The Cosmic Turning Point: Understanding the Longest Night of the Year. As the chill of December deepens, the world pauses on the Winter Solstice – December 21, 2025 in the Northern Hemisphere – the shortest day and longest night of the year. At this precise cosmic turning point, when Earth’s tilt is farthest from the sun, has inspired awe, reverence, and celebration for over five thousand years.
The Return of Subtle Light: Perceiving Source in January’s Slow Dawn
By: Glenn Workman, Director of Life Temple
Beloved souls,
Here we are, in the heart of January.
The holidays have dissolved into memory. The solstice fire has settled into quiet embers. And now, in the deepest fold of winter, something almost imperceptible is happening: the light is returning – not with trumpets, but with the gentleness of a whisper only the awake heart can hear.
Person Lying on Bed Near Window, looking at the morning sun.
Why January Is a Powerful Spiritual Portal of Renewal
Every January, this shift touches me more intimately than any other time of year. After the turning point of Winter Solstice, January is no longer about the promise of return. The return is already underway. The wheel has turned. Yet because the change is so slow – so exquisitely subtle. However, most people miss it entirely.
And that, dear one, is precisely why January is one of the most potent spiritual portals of the entire year.
The Miracle That Almost No One Notices
By the end of December, daylight has already begun lengthening again. Then, in January, the increase becomes tangible – even if only by minutes each day. Then, stand outside at dawn on January 1 and then again on January 31. You will not need a clock. Your body knows. Something inside you exhales. This is not the dramatic rebirth of spring. This is the quiet, steady revelation of what was never truly absent. The light was always here.
The Light Never Left: Remembering What Darkness Conceals
What appeared as darkness was merely the veil of our own forgetting. And in January, nature herself begins gently lifting that veil.
Perceiving Source in the Slow Dawn
There is a moment, just before sunrise in mid-January, when the sky shifts from black to the deepest indigo. At this state, it is not yet blue, nor is not yet day. It is the color of infinite depth. In that moment, if you are very still, you can feel it:
The boundary between “inside” and “outside” dissolves. The light that is slowly creeping over the horizon is not separate from the light behind your eyes. The vastness above is not different from the vastness within. This is Source perceiving itself through you. Not as a concept. Not as a teaching. But as direct, lived experience.
How Winter Stillness Restores Our Capacity to See the Light
January invites us into this perception because everything external supports it. The air is crisp and clear. The trees are bare, revealing the bones of truth. Distractions have fallen away with the old year. There is nowhere to hide – and therefore, nowhere you need to hide. The light returns, yes. However, more accurately: your capacity to perceive the light that never left is restored.
A Simple January Practice: The Slow Dawn Attunement
Whenever the call arises this January – even once or twice, or on any morning that feels right – I warmly invite you to join me in spirit, wherever you are in the world, in this simple attunement:
1. Rise just a little earlier than usual (even 10–15 minutes before sunrise is enough).
2. Step outside or sit by a window facing east.
3. Do nothing. Simply be present as the sky changes.
4. Notice the exact moment the first hint of light appears.
5. Feel, without wording, that this light is arising within you simultaneously.
6. Rest as that light. Let the body soften. Let the mind dissolve into seeing.
The Slow Dawn Practice: Awakening Without Effort
Do not try to make anything happen. The grace of January is that nothing needs to be forced. The light returns on its own. So, your recognition of Source returns on its own. All that is required is your willingness to show up for one slow dawn – or many.
Why January Whispers the Deepest Truth of the Year
Spring will shout awakening. Similarly summer will blaze it. Meanwhile autumn will paint it in gold. But January whispers the deepest truth of all: There never was separation. There never was darkness. There was only the appearance of a veil – and the eternal light patiently waiting behind your very own eyes.
January’s True Gift: The End of the Illusion of Separation
When you perceive the subtle return of light in January’s slow dawn, you are not witnessing an event in time. You are recognizing what you have always been. Source, perceiving itself. Light, beholding light. One, knowing itself as One. This is the gift of January.
Not the return of the light – but the end of the illusion that it ever left.
With boundless love from the still point of winter.
Sunday Morning Meditation Circle in January at Life Temple
P.S. If this transmission calls to you, you are warmly invited to join our Sunday Morning Meditation Circle throughout January. We meet in sacred silence and shared presence each week, resting together in the same slow dawn light. The circle is held at the Life Temple Wellness Club at 764 McGuire Place, Newport News, VA 23601 (on the top floor of the PESTOUT building) at 10:00 am Sunday mornings.
May your January be filled with the quiet, unstoppable recognition of what you truly are.
The light in me perceives and honors the light in you – Let it be.
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