The Longest Night of the Year

Over the vacation, I used to be visiting household in North Georgia. We had been there throughout the Winter Solstice.

And as you might know, on that day we mark the longest night time of the 12 months. Indigenous cultures the world over have celebrated the event with ceremony and ritual for millenia.

When my household and I had been visiting Stonehenge in England this previous July, we realized that the Winter Solstice is the greatest annual occasion there, when pagan pilgrims come to acknowledge and honor the “rebirth” of the solar for the new 12 months.

And that’s what we did in Georgia.

A Solstice Burning Ceremony

One chilly and windy night time, my household gathered round the hearth to do a burning ceremony in honor of the solar’s return.

But additionally, to honor the fruitful darkness.

We every wrote on small strips of paper these issues we needed and wanted to let go of: damage emotions, lingering grudges, poisonous relationships, and different wounds and baggage we’d collected all through the 12 months.

Then we went round the circle and tossed our little paper prayers into the hearth, burning every strip one after the other. And we set our intention on releasing ourselves from these emotional anchors to make room for and provides start to no matter’s subsequent.

It was a ritual act of letting go. Not in contrast to the implicit ritual of letting go that we train after we sit down in meditation.

Finding Wholeness In The Light And The Dark

But what I really like about the solstice is the express conjunction of mild and darkish. You don’t take into consideration one with out the different. All of us, in our darkness and ache, are shepherds of the mild.

Of course, most of us need the mild and attempt to keep away from the darkish. But as medical psychologist Dr. Steven Hays so eloquently places it in his essay, From Loss to Love, “to open your coronary heart to ache is to open your coronary heart to pleasure.”

And that great Pixar film “Inside Out” captures the identical poignant dynamic with its central revelation…when the character Joy realizes that her human, Rylee, can’t actually be pleased with out embracing Joy’s antagonist, the all the time blue “Sadness.”

One doesn’t exist with out the different. Our human wholeness relies upon upon a stability of each.

The Restorative Spirit of Darkness

As we embark on the New Year forward, sure, let’s have fun the coming of the mild. But the darkish days are nonetheless lengthy. And earlier than we rush to embrace the mild, let’s not overlook that we discover our wholeness in the fertile—and infrequently difficult—darkness too.

To this finish, enable me to share a poem. An ode to the redemptive, restorative, revelatory, and resurgent spirit of darkness.

And in the event you’re feeling notably mired in the darkness, please know that you’re by no means alone. Help is all the time out there.

In Celebration of the Winter Solstice
By Stephanie Noble

Do not be afraid of the darkness.
Dark is the wealthy fertile earth
that cradles the seed, nourishing progress.
Dark is the tender night time that cradles us to relaxation.
Only in darkness
can stars shine throughout the vastness of area.
Only in darkness
is the moon’s dance so clear.
There is thriller woven in the darkish quiet hours.
There is magic in the darkness.

Do not be afraid.
We are born of this magic.
It fills our goals
that root, unravel and reweave themselves
in the shelter of the deep darkish night time.
The darkish has its personal hue,
its personal resonance, its personal breath.
It fills our soul,
not with despair, however with promise.
Dark is the gestation of our deep and realizing self.
Dark is the cave the place we relaxation and renew our soul.
We are born of the darkness,
and every night time we return
to the deep moist womb of our beginnings.

Do not be afraid of the darkness,
for in the depth of that very darkness
comes a primary glimpse of our personal mild,
the pure internal mild of love and realizing.
As it glows and grows, the darkness recedes.
As we shed our mild, we shed our concern,
and enjoy the surprise of all that’s revealed.

So, don’t rush the coming of the solar.
Do not crave the lengthening of the day.
Celebrate the darkness.
Here and now. A time of richness. A time of pleasure.