Identity Crisis
Today is the Winter Solstice, when here in the Northern Hemisphere the Earth is maximally tilted away from the Sun. We talk about the light returning, but really, it’s we who are returning to the light. Starting tomorrow, slowly but surely, the amount of daylight increases. Who are we going to be as this new revolution around the Sun begins? At moments like this – poised between dark and light – we are reminded that who we are is not a fixed thing, but a field of possibility.
In quantum mechanics, a particle exists in a superposition of all possible states at once – until a measurement is made. Even weirder, quantum particles exist simultaneously as both a particle and a wave, again until a “measurement” occurs. A measurement is an interaction between a quantum system (such as an electron) and the surrounding environment that forces the system out of its superposition of potential states into a single, observable state. It is the result of an exchange of information that isolates the particle into one state.
Theoretically, at least, this could apply to macro objects as well. However, in the observable, macroscopic world, objects are exchanging information with their environment (including us) all the time. In “woo” circles, we are encouraged to take charge of what we are manifesting in our lives—vision boards, intention setting, affirmations, and the like. The idea is that we set a frequency for ourselves that inevitably attracts a match: romantic love, physical health, financial wealth.
If only it were that simple.
Reality is a group project. Systemic oppression is real. And we do, individually, also have a critical role within it. In Buddhist philosophy, there is the concept that “all is mind,” which dovetails intriguingly with quantum mechanics and the idea of superposition. In The Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana, a text from the 5th or 6th century, it is asserted that mind – not only mind in the abstract, but the actual minds of sentient beings – “includes within itself all states of being of the phenomenal world and the transcendent world.”
What we believe in our minds, what we are present and awake to, and where we place our attention all have the ability to shape our experience – and to ripple outward. In 1919, the poet and mystic W. B. Yeats wrote “The Second Coming,” which contains lines that feel chillingly timely:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
If it feels like a time of crisis – it is. But we are agents of reality, not merely its victims. In its root sense, the word crisis is an empowering concept, derived from the Greek krisis, meaning “decision, judgment, or turning point.”
As we prepare for 2026, we get to choose how we want to show up – who we want to be in this next cycle around the Sun. Like the day after the solstice, the change may be almost imperceptible at first, but it is real. A few more seconds of light. A subtle shift in direction. Let it be a ceremony of innocence over cruelty, a reclamation of our moral humanity, grounded in conviction. This, too, is how the light returns.
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