Deep
Winter
“Remember
the sky that you were born under,
know each
of the star's stories.
Remember
the moon, know who she is.
Remember
the sun's birth at dawn, that is the
strongest
point of time. Remember sundown
and the
giving way to night...”
Joy Harjo
(Poet Laureate of the United States)
As we approach the Winter
Solstice, I find myself turning more and more to poetry. Perhaps this
is because the time of year for introspection has arrived—winter is
the season to tend to your inner life. Nature shows us how to do that
by going inside. The sap withdraws and the branches are bare and
bone-like. Many mammals go into den to hibernate. It is a time for
silence and quiet reflection. Poetry is an interior thing—it helps
us to contemplate what is within the cave of our own being.
Take these lines from
Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi, for example: “Stop acting so small.
You are the universe in ecstatic motion.” Or these: “If
you're irritated by every rub, how will your mirror be polished?”
Sometimes, we need to stop all the extroverted action and go within
to ground ourselves in our own inner reality. How on earth will we
ever know who we are and what is true for us if we are always
dashing around to the next cocktail party or holiday event? We are
like a photo of a run-away stallion—a mere blur on the paper of our
lives. Here's some advice from an ancient dervish: “Sell all
your cleverness and buy bewilderment.” (Rumi) It will set you
in good standing with your soul.
One of the reasons we
come away from the holidays exhausted rather than uplifted is that we
never take time to contemplate what they mean or why they are
important to us. We enact sacred rituals from rote, rather than from
the heart or the soul. We put on our make-up, and dash out the door
like the house is on fire in order to get a good parking place for
the choir's rendition of the Messiah. But when do we spend some time
with the baby born within us this time of year? When do we prepare
for the coming of the light of God in our own lives?
Today, stop for an hour.
Allow your mind and your body to become still. Light a candle and ask
yourself what the coming of the Messiah—Emmanuel—actually means
to you. Do you have time for that? Can the presents and the
preparations wait one hour while you welcome the baby from Bethlehem?
Here's what Rumi said about that: “When you do things from your
soul, you feel a river running in you, a joy!” Not exhaustion,
just joy.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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