How The Light Returns. A single candle surrounded by darkness made deeper by the point of light; a circle of faces lit by the amber glow of a fire in a circle of stones in a clearing outside or in a dark cave, or a longhouse; someone walking alone through a bleak winter forest, seeing up ahead a small cabin lit from within- welcoming, waiting, promising warmth. How do you imagine it when someone talks about the promise of the returning light in this time of the longest darkness? If we live long enough we will experience times of personal darkness. I’m not thinking here of the fertile darkness of deep rest and dreaming. I love the renewal and creative stirring of those periods. But I am thinking now of times when the way is lost and the heart is too weary to hope. I am contemplating the ways in which light returns. Sometimes it is gradual. Here in the northern hemisphere we will experience the longest night this coming Saturday the 21st and the next day- the very next day- dawn comes a bit earlier and dusk arrives an indiscernible moment later than it did the day before. That’s what coming up out of personal darkness is sometimes like: gradual, slow, an imperceptible movement back toward the fullness of life after we have experienced some kind of loss that has plunged us into what we fear is an eternal darkness. Food begins to have taste once more, and something unexpectedly makes us smile- if only for a moment- after weeks or months bereft of flavor or laughter……Oriah Mountain Dreamer

this rising up to root deep in knowing….a paradox of immense struggle and despair warms us with the brightest faith…..it is here, before the turn of light that we know ourselves for the first time…..may solstice call us to the turning wheel of soul……

Such techniques- facing our pain, seeing the enemy as a potential ally, learning to wait, giving inner events time to ripen and mature- are methods we too can use, not only for answering our Call but for self-transformation in general. Difficult experiences, we learn, give us a window into rooms within ourselves we are normally unaware of. When we undergo a harsh setback, a crisis, a severe loss, even a prolonged period of sadness or depression, the psychological check valves that keep certain emotions locked inside us are sprung and powerful new feelings come flooding out. In the fury that follows, we find ourselves caught up in the confusion and distress. We endure these bouts of anguish as best we can and hope for the best. There’s not always a great deal we can do for ourselves while they’re taking place. But afterward, when the smoke clears and the trauma is past, we discover that certain rock-hard insights have crystallized from these encounters. We find that age-old psychic debris is purged from us now, and that we are different and better people for having passed through the needle’s eye. Certain notions begin to make sense for the first time, such as the Jewish saying ‘God is closest to those with broken hearts;’ or the quote from the Midrash: ‘Not to know suffering means not to be human.’ Something that once held us back, that obscured our vision, has been removed; and the suffering is what removed it. Looking back on hard times, it’s often apparent that while these experiences hurt us, they also open deep recesses inside our being and make us aware that without the pain of birth nothing new can ever be born. Without such encounters, we realize, we would be less mature today, less aware of who we are and where we wish to go…….H. Moody & D. Carroll

becoming winter magic

I am becoming water:

I let everything rinse its grief in me

and reflect as much light as I can.

….Mark Nepo