It is Winter Solstice. It is Winter Solstice and I am off work with nothing to do other than the words and the inside-shining light and the outside sunniness of white and leave-less black outlines of everything on the land. I spent over an hour just coveting shoes. Shoes shoes o god, these shoes that are whole entire outfits unto their godly selves, shoes that live with whole cities of liveliness and stories inside them, buildings on the horizon brights lights flashing promise and all. Shoes that make my heart-throb go. How funny, I thought to myself, in bed, smiling, the light of the white sun on the flesh of my face. Earlier in the same bed with the same smile the white light of the moon, same shine on same flesh. How funny that I who am wild woman, who understands the currents and the tides, who drinks knowledge from her air and her sun and her rain and her seas, who finds myself when lost by securing heels deeply rooted and bared-down on her greens or florals or browns. How funny that in all this, my ache to be of the land again, to wild craft medicines deep from the woods, to live in cob houses I built by hand, to give back food to the land every day in the form of compost not waste, how funny that I too have whole rooms of my self, have whole cities complete with docks and transit ports and inroads and funny back alley ways where shadows lay and neon lights fizzle and buzz, whole entire worlds in myself as true as the moon and the tides but built on Vogue magazine, on Macy's credit cards, on Facebook and Youtube and the gas guzzling car I drive...
God is in the details, no? God is in, nahhh...is every single one of us. Is all, is all of us is every single solitary little thing. And no thing primarily is right or wrong. And all that space, too, in-between. There is peace in this, and great joy. Abundance of present moment being as good as it gets...holiness are your own truths, you the only king, queen, you'll need.
And so it is solstice, time of Winter Passing and Great Still Tide. What is esoteric, anyway? I said to Ben this week about relearning to read (he is a musician as well as a fantasy-thinker thus Jedi is in make-up and so self-study, by words and music will serve him so good) : words have a vibration based on their intent and where there intent meets your own soul. Sit with certain words, the phrases or sentences or songs that make your insides give a little hummmm. He gets it, he always does. What is esoteric anyway, for the rest of you reading along? Belief in the interior-passage. Believing that the inside world--to which you and only you have the gift of forging--is where all messages and answers lay, yet undone. To believe esoterically is to likewise avow yourself of the present moment. To show up to this moment right now because you understand that there is no disconnect between what is happening in the outter, material world and what for you, and specifically you, is within. One is a guidepost, always, to the other. Both are infinite and ever inter-changing.
So, sit still with this:
Winter Solstice.
The world over, four times a year via a variety of religious and/or secularly celebrated festivals, people mark the time of Nature's seasons and passing's. Twice each year the amount of day light and darkness are equal and these are known as Equinoxes; and twice each year the amount of daylight or darkness peaks at its longest point for the year. These are known as Solstices. The esoteric recognizes these times as appropriate to consider the same tendencies within: that which is your most light, that which is your most dark. The esoteric recognizes that light and dark, as nature teaches, are neither to be demonized. Each passes and teaches its own lessons, as do these stages of our inner life.
Winter Solstice brings us to the peak of darkness. Dark merely means without light, so depending on your application darkness could be the time that, as a seed slumbers during the darkest part of winter to re-bloom in the spring, your potential is quiet and unknown yet, but gaining strength. It could too be about an aspect of your character that you would rather not "shed light on", as gluttony or sloth or pride. Whatever it is, the concept of darkness requires us to regard it with wisdom, recognizing that what lay in the dark can never be brought to the light if we purposefully run from it, judge it, or try to destroy it. Remember, whatever in the world makes you cringe or hide or hate or flare exists wholly within you, otherwise you could not recognize it with such response.
Winter Solstice speaks this message quietly to our soul.
Equally important, the Solstices and Equinoxes are times of great energetic shifts. Remember that the esoteric sees the everyday at once as it is, and at once with wise respect for the layered significance it holds. Here's where astrology comes in. For centuries astrology has been a guide to all cultures and civilizations, based on its myths and stories. Myth is merely story, and stories are no more than lessons to our hearts and souls. So each astrological sign has a story or lesson behind it, and it is this story that the esoteric applies to his or her own life path. The Winter Solstice marks the longest night, the return of the light (hence the popular Jesus, or Return of the "Son/Sun" myth) as well as the shift from Sagittarius to Capricorn. Ok so here we go--I love this stuff!!! Sagittarius's myth is the story of Chiron. Chiron is known as the wounded healer and what we learn from his story is that through injury, and more importantly fully healing our injuries, we gain greater knowledge of our own condition and of each other. Chiron is the medicine of compassion. Capricorn is the myth of the Goat God, or anyhow the old-school Male God that was most esteemed. In this story Bachus defeats the scary spiteful God Typhon and he does so because he is half-goat and half-fish. The symbology of this is so important, particularly for men today. He wins this battle for being able to see in the world of day to day (the material, symbolized by the goat or literal earth-god) and for being able to see from under water, water of course always being symbolic of the emotional world. Therefor it teaches that to overcome a battle one must be willing to be a hero in the outter, and inner world. Capricorn is associated with the sign, or symoblism, of dad, as Cancer is mom.
In alchemy, another one of the esoteric's interests, elements and qualities are very important. So the story of Winter Solstice is about the shift from knowing your own injuries and being able to be a hero (a dad) in your own outter and inner life. In November we revisit our own "wounds", in December, at the moment of darkest dark, we are called upon to own and heal them by being our own hero. We move, at Solstice, from Fire in the mutable form of Sagittarius (fire changes forms by burning--think of baking or forest fires or the crucible--burning away imperfections; mutable means literally to be changeable) to Earth in the cardinal form of Capricorn (earth element is matter, the element of what can be seen, felt, tasted, heard; cardinal is of foremost importance.) So the energetic shift at Solstice is that from changing within to making that change real, felt, in reality.
Finally! We had a full moon overnight. Full moon illuminates, sheds the greatest amount of light on something. Greatest amount of light on our "most dark." In all, a deeply significant time. Mercury is retrograde right now, too, almost two weeks in. Retros in Mercury occur right before the equinoxes and solstice and are meant as an internal review of all the lessons, esoterically, that we just learned in the season that is about to pass.
I mark these important days by taking time to be quiet, self-aware, and full of thanks. My intention, for the darkest time of the year and at once the energetic return of the full-bodied, completely aware light of knowledge: That at this time of trouble and chaos in our world, each person know the love, joy and abundance of their own rich and meaningful inner-life. Of their own true source, and the contagiousness of this out in the day to day world. That the two--your inner life and outter, reflect in a way that is harmonious. That there be peace and wisdom in this, and that this peace and wisdom be more than enough from each of us to each of us, the world over. Amen amen, amen, and happy winter solstice to all my precious dear, dear friends.
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