Still light

Words from the Winter Solstice 2022.

The fire thrives when we tend to it with regularity. It strengthens itself from the spaces, space which might seem like a lacking, or a loss of some sort. But this space in-between is in fact necessary, space that allows for its unfolding. To burn like this requires the constant tending like that of a mother to her newborn: sure of itself, uninterrupted.

Before the fire, this day started with a spark of light, a seed planted into a darkened sky. A light so small, doubting its own capacity for growth. I watched it rise, from a seedling to a perfect blooming circle, golden and rooted and so still. Sol-stice. For a moment, the sun descends into stillness. A threshold. We almost doubt this crossing that carries light. Our eyes take time to adjust, like the eyes that have seen only dark for so long, almost blinded with the opening.

I begin to trust in the potency of this darkness, trust that its grounding is fertile and filled with life. Around me the world turns, shifts and roars and tugs at my feet, the world turns and sings its ancient songs yet for the first time I feel a stability as my back sends roots down into the earth, as my feet are so sure of the ground below, so stable.

And these words circle in my head like a mad bird on and on and on:
The world was made to be free in.
The world was made to be free in.

_{*”the world was made to be free in” is a line from the poem Sweet Darkness by David Whyte}