Into the Dark ~ with joy
As we come to our winter solstice day here in the northern hemisphere, I have become aware of how much I actually enjoy the ‘dark’. I was pondering this the other day and I believe it may be because I no longer ‘resist’ it. I let myself crawl into bed at 7:30 pm and wake up at 4 but then ‘lie about’, drifting in and out of light sleep until I feel like getting up around 6:30 or so. I also stop pushing at myself to get lots of things accomplished. My mind seems to go on ‘holiday’ about this time of the year and I just let it be less focused as does my sense of pushing my body to be up and doing for long hours of the day. Given that the other half of the world in going straight into summer, brightness, sunshine, and long days I guess I have decided that they can be the ‘active’ part of the whole while I can let myself slide into a bit of ‘semi-hibernation’.
I think that it is this impulse that often brings on the colds and flus of this season because rather than giving way to this cycle, those of us up here in the north try to just keep the lights burning brightly and keep pace as though there is nothing particularly different happening outside us. Our bodies wisdom takes over when this happens and makes us slow down ~ as an ally and a friend rather than a ‘problem to be fixed’.
So, for me this month is a simple message of honoring the larger cycles of our lives in which we are deeply entwined whether we want to be or not. As the decades have passed, I find it easier to surrender to this truth and let myself be carried by it…and in this year in particular, be carried straight into this New Year of 2013 and whatever it may bring for us all.
A close friend and one known to many in the circle of Silence, Glennifer Gillespie, sent me this beautiful poem that seems to speak to the energy that I feel is pulling us out of 2012 and into the newness to come. May you listen closely and enjoy the season whatever it may bring.
Hallelucinogenic
There are days coming
just over the horizon
when it will become
common speech again
to share
how we each hear
the Great Orchestra within
The strange customs
practiced in the Anonymous Nation
will drop by the wayside.
The avoidance of each other’s eyes
the reflex phrase.
“I’m fine” when you’re really not.
Those carrying unnecessary weight in silence
those covering over dusky secrets
(which are worn on the outside for the world to see)
will be folded back
into the Bright Secret
that binds you and me.
There are nights coming
just over the horizon
when hand in hand
we will ride the sun dagger
over the edge of day
into the great velvet passage
of dream-sharing.
You see
the placid stars
are sending down
a thousand stories
inside a hundred songs
that only our cells understand.
Let the work of translation begin!
Because the Singers
care not how we remember
as long as we remember.
There is no space outside of here.
~ Frank Owen ~
With much affection and with you on December 30th,
Peri & Barbara
"Holding one another as we are likewise held by life."
Painting by Barbara