Winter Solstice

The end of the dark and yet, somehow, the official beginning of winter. So what we've lived the last month is...here - still wintry.

I opened an email from my friend Christine today which read, "At 12:47 today the sun stands still -- celebrate!"

And until June 21st, the days will each get a little bit longer. I feel as if I've made it. I always celebrate the fact that the shortest day of the year is behind me, regardless of the fact that the toughest winter months are still to come.

Having tried to embrace the dark these last two months and really delve deeply, working with a deck of cards that describes archetypes and their light and shadow sides, I feel well versed. The one stickler there was that I kept pulling The Saboteur card. And after a little while I decided I needed to settle down and receive that message. I'm still processing.

But a saving grace came last night, while coming to the conclusion of Martha Beck's, "Steering By Starlight". Therein was a poem by Ben Okri (whose book I will be buying after the holidays) which reads:

Remember that all things which happen
To you are raw materials
Endlessly fertile
Endlessly yielding of thoughts that could change
Your life and go on doing forever...
So fear not, my friend.
The darkness is gentler than you think.

I am so grateful for finding that poem when I did. Or perhaps it found me.