The month between American Thanksgiving and the year-end sacred holidays is full, full, full. Pageants, concerts, holiday parties, shopping specials, family gatherings. There is no end of opportunities to keep externally engaged. It is a time to reweave communities and families. It is a time of a lot of fun and good-heartedness.

And it is also an important time for quiet tending to one’s life. Taking my cue from nature in the northern hemisphere, I am enjoying longer nights of sleep. I am tending more carefully to my hearth—evening fires, baking and cooking, and watching fluctuations in the barometer as winter storms blow through. And I am deepening the time I devote to special relationships.

Balance. Nature teaches us a lot about balance—times of full output, times of rest. My wish for you in this season is balance in the fullness of your life.