Celebrating Solstice: Listening to the Shadows
by Kiva Rose

http://animacenter.org

Darkness is your candle, your boundaries are your quest… You must have shadow and light source both. Listen, and lay your head under the tree of awe.
-Rumi

Today the sun begins its return to our hemisphere, and though it will be many weeks before most of us notice the subtle lengthening of days, we celebrate this turning point with a festival of candles symbolic of the growing light. Each day forward from here, the nights will grow slightly shorter, and gift us with a little more illumination through the many cold moons left to come. Especially in the holiday rush and cultural obsession with bright lights and shiny things to keep the dark out, it’s very easy to forget the unique opportunity that winter presents us with. Understandably, most of us feel an urge to rush the seasonal shift, and to focus on the arrival of the greener, warmer days rather than stopping to dwell in the moment and appreciating what this time has to teach us.

In this crux of dark and light, we reside in a world rich in shadow and many shaded colors. For shadows aren’t just some indeterminate grey area between two polarities, but rather the complex subtleties of a wide spectrum. We tend to prefer the light and to cling to the familiar and seeable world – and yet, depth and detail are often best noticed by twilight or the shadows passing storm-clouds. Just as the contrast of light created by shadow often makes for the most striking of images, so does the darkness of these days present us with the ability to see deeper into our own lives.

Winter is the story telling time, a period in which to remember and to ponder. A place in which to dream. It’s in this space that we often begin to understand what the intense experiences we had in warmer months have to tell us. It’s no accident that in folklore, the faery and all things magical are most likely to appear by dusk or at the cusp between seasons. These times of transition hold the secrets and potential of what can be seen or experienced.

In the dark of this season, the weight of memories and past grief can seem heavier without the reassuring guidance of light just ahead. As the sun has waned to a brief  glimmer and the nights grown long and still, it can be difficult to remain sure of our footing and certain that we’re heading in the right direction. In this way, the dark season teaches us to be still, to listen and to practice awareness with each step we take, to feel our way through the sometimes labyrinthian paths of our lives and emotions. By recognizing this, we can experience the time as the gift is.  Instead of fleeing from the onslaught of sensation or trying to take control of the situation by incessantly moving, we would do best to give ourselves to the earthen rest we’re offered.

In half-light and shadows are the reminder of mystery, and the inherent magic of our world. In the cold moons are the opportunity to nourish ourselves and rest, to remember and replenish, knowing that the light will soon be returning and now is the time to give ourselves the space to go within, until the light calls us forward into the next turning.

With that in mind, I offer you my own celebration of the Solstice, a lullaby for the dreaming time.

The Story Telling Moon
by Kiva

tell me a story, love
in the dark down
in this leaf lined log
where we lay together
and dream
root tendrils
into blooming

dressed in fur
your hair wild
and twisted with braids
and dried flowers
you touch my cheek
we curl together
stalking lunar circles
tracing sun spirals
on each other’s skin

the clacking
of small bones
between us
the stories we tell
of green buds
adorning brown sticks
of warm sweet honey
sticky on our lips

in the dark our tree
buried by
a thousand sparkles
by so many feet
of snow we speak
of swimming
to the cold surface
just to taste sunlight

but I breathe your scent
curl against your chest
arrange our blanket of moss
and brown leaves
turn with the moon
drink stars
and go deeper into darkness

———————–

(as always, please post and forward freely… photo of the Animá Sanctuary (c) 2009 by Jesse Wolf Hardin)

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Categories: Practicing Animá Lifeways

This entry was posted on Monday, December 21st, 2009 at 6:54 pm and is filed under Practicing Animá Lifeways. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.