Dr. Robert A. Jonas will guide the Myth Salon through an in-depth exploration of this year’s Winter Solstice, a time of maximum darkness in the northern hemisphere and maximum sunlight in the southern hemisphere. The word solstice is derived from the Latin sol ("sun") and sistere ("to stand still"), because at the solstices, the Sun's continuous tilting toward and away from the sun appears to "stand still.” Jonas likens this momentary stillness in the heavens to the pause between our in-breath and out-breath. Focusing upon our experience in the north, Dr. Jonas will suggest spiritual and psychological practices and natural rhythms of knowing that honor the planetary darkness. Darkness can evoke danger and fear – especially in these uncertain times – but millennia of mystical teachers in the Abrahamic and Eastern traditions describe a holy Darkness that is a portal to divine Light, Love, and Wisdom. Jonas will offer insights from Jewish, Christian, and Buddhist teachers, and from poets such as Blake, Rilke, Stafford, and TS Eliot – wisdom figures who show us how to see in the dark.