Every year at this time, I feel the anxiety and restlessness begin to rise within me, and the cold settles into my bones. Every year, I need to consciously ease my spirit into the season. This year, from the beginning of December until Epiphany, I will set it down here on the blog. May we journey into the darkness with intention and tenderness.
When we hiked the Appalachian Trail, there were those moments when we were climbing a mountain, when we felt like we were there. The path began to level out, the trees got a little shorter, the breezes seemed to signal success. So often, that was just the notice, just the heralding of the top and not the top itself. Often there was more climbing, more pushing ourselves to that last burst of energy necessary before we could find a place to sit and look down at the world below us.
It happened over and over again, that moment when I was sure we’d made it, only to have to climb another half hour or more, legs and back aching, longing for a break.
That’s this week. I can taste it, the moment of turn and shift, the dawn of that Lightreturn sun. But it is not here yet, and I have a week to go, pushing myself through this week yet, until I can take a break and rest in the darkness, marveling at the returning light.
So push on is my small phrase for the day. Feel the breeze, gather in the feeling of a journey almost accomplished, keep a keen eye peeled for the destination. But push on, push through the weariness and the desire to be done, to be there already. Use the available energy to get the necessary work done.
Gratitude List:
1. Little bursts of energy
2. When characters and ideas in books seem to spill out into real life
3. That injera with curried lentils and potatoes and cabbage and quinoa was really delicious. Even the sick child wandered to the table to eat it.
4. Sick child did not throw up yesterday
5. The light WILL return.
May we walk in Beauty!
Ella Wheeler Wilcox’s poem “Protest” published in 1914:
To sin by silence when we should protest
makes cowards out of men. The human race
Has climbed on protest. Had no voice been raised
Against injustice, ignorance and lust,
The inquisition yet would serve the law.
And guillotines decide our least disputes.
The few who dare must speak and speak again,
To right the wrongs of many.
“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.”
— J.R.R. Tolkien LOTR The Two Towers
Good rules from Rob Breszny:
“Don’t make nasty comments about yourself behind your own back.
Do play soccer in bunny slippers at dawn in a supermarket parking lot with a gang of Vipassana experts who have promised to teach you the Balinese monkey chant.
Do not share deep secrets with creatures you don’t like.
Do wear a T-shirt that says, “Of all the things I’ve lost, I miss my mind the most.”
Don’t glide into a bar, scout around for the person whose face has the most pain etched in it, and ask that person to come home with you.
Do pretend sometimes that maybe you mean the opposite of what you’re saying as well as what you’re saying.
Don’t pile up framed photos of old flames in a vacant lot and drive a monster truck over them.
Do stage a slow-motion water balloon fight.
Don’t gaze into a mirror and spout, “God damn you, why can’t you be different from who you are?!”
Do shake your fist at the night sky as you call out, “I defy you, stars!”
Do not put handfuls of dead ants in envelopes and mail them to people you’re mad at.
Do run along the tops of cars during a traffic jam, escaping from the bad guys as you make your way to a helicopter that takes you to a spot hovering over an erupting volcano, into which you drop the Buns of Steel video.
Don’t put your soul up for auction on eBay or pine for people who are sitting right next to you.”
Mockingbird Chronicles 