We are in the dark time of winter as we approach the winter solstice and the celebration of Yule on the Celtic Wheel of the Year. In contemporary Western society, we have a tendency to associate the dark with evil, with pain, with fear. In the great wisdom traditions, this was not the case. The Celts, both during the times of the druids and of Celtic Christianity, knew the dark as representing the womb of God, of fecundity of the earth, of generativity and beginnings. They lit candles, not against the dark, but to decorate the dark time…the womb time. The great Yule festival was all about honoring and nurturing both generosity and generativity; honoring the generosity and generativity given to us by our mother earth, our more than human kin and the divine, and nurturing our own generosity and generativity to ALL others. As we move towards the holidays and the winter solstice, as we gather with friends and family, let us do so from a nurturing place of generosity and generativity. And as we do, let us remember to honor this same generosity and generativity in our more than human kin, our great mother earth and the divine.. through ritual, prayer, artistic expression, our actions, or even just through our quiet presence… sharing time in the divine womb, in the dark. For at the deepest dark, the brightest radiance is born!
As Wendell Berry writes in his poem, To know the Dark,
“To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark.
Go without sight,
And find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
And is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.
During these dark winter months, life is being nurtured within seeds in the womb of Mother Earth… using the fecundity found in death to bring forth new life in the spring. This ceaseless spiral of birth…life…death…and rebirth… nurtures continuous expressions of creativity and transformation. Mirroring the season, within our own inner darkness, we too can be nurturing seeds for growth and transformation in the spring to come. You see, our minds and hearts are incredibly fertile ground where seeds are continually planted. These seeds are our thoughts, opinions, feelings and ideas. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance that we pay attention to what seeds we are planting; fear or love, hatred or compassion, division or harmony, oppression or generativity.
As Robert Augustus Masters writes, “Seeds grow in the dark—so do we. Let’s stop making such a virtue out of the light and turn toward what’s in the shadows and breathe it in, breathe it here, meeting it face-to-face until we realize with more than the mind that what we are seeing is none other than us in endarkened disguise. Seeds grow in the dark—so do we. Let’s not be blinded by light let’s unwrap the night building a faith too deep to be spoken, a recognition too central to be broken, until even the darkest of days can light our way.” You see, a seed needs to be in the darkness before it can spring into the light. A seed needs to go down before it goes up, and so must we!
Now, in the darkness of winter, is the time to sow and nurture the seeds we want to bring forth new life in ourselves, in our relationships, and in our communities.
I invite you to spend some time with the blessing below… perhaps in the place where you hold your holy saunter.
Much Love and Wild Blessingsl!
AT THE END OF THE YEAR by John O’Donohue
The particular mind of the ocean
Filling the coastline’s longing
With such brief harvest
Of elegant, vanishing waves
Is like the mind of time
Opening us shapes of days
As this year draws to its end.
We give thanks for the gifts it brought
And how they became inlaid within
Where neither time nor tide can touch them.
The days when the veil lifted
And the soul could see delight
When a quiver caressed the heart
In the sheer exuberance of being here.
Surprises that came awake
In forgotten corners of old fields
Where expectation seemed to have quenched.
The slow, brooding times
When all was awkward
And the wave in the mind
Pierced every sore with salt.
The darkened days that stopped
The confidence of the dawn,
Days when beloved faces shon
brighter
With light from beyond themselves;
And from the granite of some secret
sorrow
A stream of buried tears loosened,
We bless this year for all we learned
For all we loved and lost
And for the quiet way it brought us
Nearer to our invisible destination.
Yorumlar