Decem (X)

Just as vast amounts of ancient wisdom have been passed through time via the now-weathered stones of the Great Pyramid, so our own patchwork calendar quietly protects deeper insight. December (“the tenth month” in name, but the twelfth in sequence) remains the final link to the old convention before Janus turns the year into something new. This is not an error of history, but an echo: a marker of transition that has been intentionally preserved. December is the hinge between what has been and what will be.

December’s path from the 1st to the winter solstice is the final movement of the yearly breath. At the end of a deep stretch, we release contraction — and in doing so, we feel ease. The exhale does not collapse us; it restores us.

Throughout the year, we expanded outward — taking on roles, responsibilities, challenges, and growth. December calls forth a different kind of strength: the strength to soften, to receive, to allow the cycle to complete without forcing a final push. After honest effort, the body and spirit do not need more discipline, they need permission to be held.

This month, remember that December is not an ending that asks for achievement — it is an ending that invites receiving.

The Ipsilateral Functional Line

The Ipsilateral Functional Line (IFL) links the arm and leg on the same side of the body, traveling through the obliques and deep stabilizers of the trunk. It is the anatomical foundation for unilateral movement — crawling, stepping, throwing, reaching — anything that requires one side to act while the other side supports without collapse.

If the Functional Lines as a whole teach coordinated motion across the body, the IFL teaches continuity of self within motion. It enables us to shift, reach, carry, or rotate without losing our center. When the IFL is strong and supple, movement feels smooth, quiet, and efficient — like energy passing through a single unbroken thread. This is the embodied sensation of grace.

When the IFL is weak or dysregulated, unilateral actions feel effortful or disjointed: the shoulder rolls forward, the ribcage torques, the pelvis collapses, the gait becomes noisy and strained. The body stops “moving as one,” and force leaks through the system.

When the IFL is healthy and integrated, effort disappears. We remain whole within change, coherent within motion, centered while shifting — just as the psyche does when grace is present.

The IFL closes out the year because it gives us the anatomical picture of December:

A single unified self moving through transition without losing integrity.

Grace

Grace is the culmination of every lesson the year has offered. Grace is motion without strain, dignity without rigidity, presence without performance — grace is the beauty that appears when nothing is forced, arriving only when we stop trying to earn worthiness. It is the quiet dignity that follows humility, and the ease that follows sincerity.

Grace is not the result of perfection — it’s what flows when we stop demanding perfection; what remains when effort becomes wisdom. It is the softness that follows strength, the dignity that follows humility, the ease that follows commitment. Grace gathers all we’ve lived this year — the poise, awe, adaptability, integration, fulfillment, nurturing, sovereignty, expressiveness, responsibility, alignment, fortitude — and weaves them into effortlessness.

Grace is not passive. It is active ease — the ability to move without forcing, to care without clinging, to lead without domination, to love without proof.

To understand grace, look to the heron. (I’ve had a few good long opportunities to watch herons in the wild this year, and I can see why they have long been a symbol for grace.) The heron moves with precision but never haste — each step deliberate, each motion necessary but never excessive. It hunts not by chasing, but by having the patience to wait for the right moment. It flies with a still body and slow wings, yet rises effortlessly because it aligns with forces greater than itself. The heron is not graceful because it performs, it is graceful because nothing is wasted.

December does not ask us to push forward — it asks us to be carried forward by everything we’ve lived, with the understanding that a year well-lived does not end in exhaustion — it ends in grace.