Tonight is the longest night of the year for those of us in the northern hemisphere. Some friends and I got together tonight and did a ceremony to honour the fertile darkness and celebrate the points of light within us and around us that are not always visible under the bright lights of the day. These friends and I have been celebrating this turning of the wheel together every year for over twenty years, Tonight as we shared stories, prayers, reflections, and intentions (not to mention some great food) I was struck by what an honour and a priviledge it is to journey with others over many years, to see and support each others unfolding.
For me it has been a year of some unexpected endings and beginnings. My marriage ended, and I had to leave my home, many dreams and most of my belongings behind. The disconnection was painful. But returning to live in Toronto I reconnected with many old friends and found new connections with others. A little over a year ago I started posting weekly blogs and this, along with starting to post on Facebook, blossomed into new online connections with people from all over the world. What an honour it has been to participate in thoughtful, inspiring, questioning and respectful conversations in both forums.
I see the time between the Winter Solstice and the new year, as a kind of crack between the worlds, a time for being still, for turning inward and for dreaming deeply. So, to honour this, I am going to step away from my computer for this time. I will resume posting regularly on FB and doing my weekly blogs in the first week of January.
I send out prayers of gratitude- for life and all that it offers, for the world and all that it asks, for friends and family and the broader community who have reached out and touched me with their support and presence during the past year. I send out prayers for peace- within myself in the places where I find myself resisting what is, for those of you who are struggling with personal challenges, for the world in all of it's sacred beauty and crazy chaos.
May we dream deeply in this time of darkness- a dream to replenish the personal and collective spirit of respect and peace and justice, of collaboration and cooperation and compassion. With deep gratitude for all the blessings of this life, Oriah
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I too recognise this need for a quiet and reflective space between solstice and new Year. thanks for helping me listen to my own inner nudges on this.
ReplyDeleteMay all your prayerful blessings be returned to you tenfold, Oriah.
Thank you Oriah. I too am in a place of listening to my dreams and being inward right now. Your post today also reminds me of a lovely piece by Marna, found in the We'Moon 2010 datebook, that I will share here...
ReplyDeleteDark Matter
In the morning time when the light takes hold of the sky to make air a presence, a wash of goodspeaking without words, I come across the deep time, the newness and I turn away from spinward, toward the place holding sleep, the still fallow stretches: I know there is no clearer place than this, nothing deeper than this. I walk until I become the dark air. I become the velvet depth of Not Yet, of Ever, of Before. I feel the thickening of Life in me, the essential wholeness.
When we speak of That From Which All Arises And Returns, we are describing not only below, the great abysms of creation—we are namespeakingsilent our centers into being. When we describe the great flaring, what we must not miss is the deepest silence in the midst of the motion, the emanating darkness. We must not remake the new human mistake of the recent past, the last five or eight thousand full circles of earth—that is: to focus on light and action at the expense of all else.
Photons are not as alone as we think them, and in a way they are not moving at all or traveling; we are. And also this, we are dancing. And also this: what if there are dark photons, anti-photons, are they moving the other way, or being still for every seeming motion? Then when I look at the galaxies starsinging brightly now, what I notice most, is the black.
—Marna 2006
Dear Oriah,
ReplyDeleteyour words have touched my heart and I want to thank you for it. May you be blessed and find your journey back to the roots of yourself and forward...
Christine
Oriah, thank you for dreaming in the dark. I was just reflecting on this in the quiet of 1am last night... that it is so rare in our busy daylight lives that we sit and share stories. Those stories are like the food that carry us in times of darkness.
ReplyDeleteDear Oriah...
ReplyDeleteTen years ago I came across "The Invitation," its meaning to me have changed over the years, but it remains an inspiration... Thank you for your beautiful writing and for sharing your vulnerability...
Happy New Year...