Come Darkness, Come Light

Poinsettia, taken December 2009 at Mitchell Park Domes, Milwaukee

Tomorrow, December 21 marks one of my favorite holidays — the Winter Solstice.

Waverly Fitzgerald is my favorite resource for honoring life's seasonal rhythms with heart and soul. This is a poem I found last year from her School of the Seasons website.

Winter Solstice

Thinking only makes the heart sore. – I Ching

when you startle awake in the dark morning
heart pounding breathing fast
sitting bolt upright staring into
dark whirlpool black hole

feeling its suction
get out of bed
knock at the door of your nearest friend
ask to lie down beside ask to be held

listen while whispered words
turn the hole into deep night sky
stars close together
winter moon rising over white fields
nearby a wren rustling dry leaves
distant owl echoing
two people walking up the road laughing

let your soul laugh
let your heart sigh out
that long held breath so hollow in your stomach
so swollen in your throat

already light is returning pairs of wings
lift softly off your eyelids one by one
each feathered edge clearer between you
and the pearl veil of day

you have nothing to do but live

by Jody Aliesan
Grief Sweat, Broken Moon Press 1990

P.S. If you are looking for a beautiful solstice song, I'd recommend Mary Chapin Carpenter's "Come Darkness, Come Light".

May you find a few moments to reflect inwardly on any darkness within you that needs light and love — and find faith and comfort in the light and spring that is coming.

Flowering Fridays: Inner Harvest

Taken at Franklin Park Conservatory, Columbus, Ohio, February 2009

Listen to the flowers.

They say,

"Go inward, touch the contours of your life.

Notice the texture and landscape of the recent cycle:

What bloomed? What remained under the safe soil of your heart?

It is a time of stillness and release.

The days are dark and loamy. It is time to go underground.

With your heart's ear you can hear the tulip opening its petals.

Go into your sacred center and see the unique shape you are, that your life is.

Pause to celebrate what has grown within you this year.

Remember to grieve what passed.

Wait with anticipation for the light that is being born within you.

Ask yourself:

what must be left behind to compost the next season of your life?

Then, dig deep and inquire across the gate of your soul:

what seeds must you carry, no matter how hard the soil of winter, no matter how long the icy journey, so that you may sow a verdant offering come spring?"

*******

With gratitude to the wisdom of the flowers, who offered these words as I journaled tonight...and with gratitude for the rhythms and musings from the poetic soul of John O'Donohue, who I am officially in big-time literary love with and have been reading and listening to all week.

Here are couple new O'Donohue audio finds here. (Scroll down to "In Case You Missed It" for a CBC and a Speaking of Faith interview). And on iTunes, I found a four-part RTÉ podcast interview with O'Donohue here.

************* 

Flowering Fridays is a weekly look at flowers through the lens of what they might teach us about flowering fully in our life. Past editions are here.

Monday Musings: We Are the Ones

A sunflower from Mom's funeral flowers, 11/23/09

My spiritual salve the past few days has been listening to some talks from John O'Donohue.

Last week, my friend Mary Frances who introduced me to O'Donohue through his poem, "Beannacht," gave me a a divinely timed CD with one of his lectures entitled, Love is the Only Antidote to Fear.

I was so moved by it that I have been listening to everything I can get my hands on. (I downloaded three more lectures from iTunes here and here and here.)

I can't quite put into words why I am loving his lectures so much. It's part his Irish brogue and sense of humor, part his weaving of poetry, spirituality and scholarly themes in such a clear way, and part a case of the right message at the right time.

Whatever the reason, I'm deeply grateful for some deeply soothing balm for my soul, which is feeling tattered and weary of late.

Last night I was listening to O'Donohue's lecture on beauty, and he closes with this quote:

"You have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour. Now you must go back and tell the people that this is the Hour. And there are things to be considered...

1) Where are you living?

2) What are you doing?

3) What are your relationships?

4) Are you in right relation?

5) Where is your water?

6) Know your garden.

7) It is time to speak your Truth.

8) Create your community.

9) Be good to each other.

10) And do not look outside yourself for the leader."

Then he clasped his hands together, smiled, and said,"This could be a good time! There is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore. They will feel they are being torn apart and will suffer greatly.

"Know the river has its destination. The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above the water.

"And I say, see who is in there with you and celebrate. At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally. Least of all, ourselves. For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey comes to a halt.

"The time for the lone wolf is over.  Gather yourselves!  Banish the word struggle from your attitude and your vocabulary.  All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.

We are the ones we've been waiting for."

— attributed to an unnamed Hopi elder, Hopi Nation

May the coming week bring you moments of beauty, soothing and calm.

P.S. I apologize for not posting a Flowering Friday last week. It was something I chose not to do last week with the fullness of planning for our first gathering at our house, nursing a slight cold, settling into the new house (all boxes unpacked!!) and re-staging our "old" house (long story short: buyer's financing is not yet coming together so we are actively showing it again). Love and warmth to you all!