Finding words to share at this time is not easy for me. I’m exhausted. We are all exhausted. We are living in a time of chaos and moral failing. A time when those wielding power use that platform to threaten, intimidate, demean, and dismantle to revive legacies of injustice that we’ve struggled so hard to rectify. I need to rest. We need to rest.

December is a time for reflection when we turn inward searching for warmth, safety, and restoration. It is a time of darkness and stillness. Of silent snowfall through towering trees. Of the endless cosmos rendered sharp and clear through the thin crisp mountain air at night. I wonder at it all. And I breathe.

I love this time of year. I love the darkness and the slowness it demands. The urgency of the world fades into the background. I love the stillness it evokes. The clarity one can find when shifting one’s senses and perspective. And when gifted the time to do so. I love the light and the luminosity darkness can render. Small lights dotting across the landscape and across the sky that may go unnoticed in the full light of day. This gives me hope.

Last week, I ended my quarter with an incredible group of doulas, midwives, organizers, as well as health system and academic partners collectively and intentionally bound together in community as the Good Black Birth Initiative. Flowing in Black joy in Black space as we launched our strategy phase to advance birth equity in Washington state. I love the darkness because it holds and nourishes the light.