Lengthening
Light
“All
winter long
behind
every thunder
guess what
we heard!
behind
every thunder
the song
of a bird
a
trumpeting bird.
All winter
long
beneath
every snowing
guess what
we saw!
beneath
every snowing
a thaw
and a
growing
a greening
and growing.
Where did
we run
beyond
gate and guardsman?
Guess if
you can!
all
winter long
we ran to
the sun,
the dance
of the sun!”
Native
American Song (Earth Prayers, p.327)
Today
is Epiphany—January 6th, the day Orthodox Churches
celebrate Christmas. Merry Christmas to them! For those of us not of
that faith, however, it is the first time we can actually tell a
difference in the length of daylight. Since the Winter Solstice,
we've gained about fifteen minutes. I noticed this morning that by
6:30, the sun was up. We are headed for spring, y'all! I want to
dance like Snoopy.
We
humans have adapted to the darkness of winter, but few of us like it.
I find myself going through the house flipping switches—turning
every light on. So there is something hopeful about the gaining of
light, even fifteen minutes of it, and even knowing there are several
months of winter still to come. We are creatures of the seed and
sapling, of the greening and growing; wired to look for new life even
in the midst of death.
Our
southern hemisphere is in mid-summer—I'm aware of this because all
of my orchids have bloom shoots. It's almost as if they are leaning
southward, yearning for the warm, wet, canopy of their native rain
forests. We deeply need reasons to feel hopeful right now; to strain
toward the sun, during these days of darkness, of armies massing on
borders, and sabers rattling all around us. It is not cavalier to
search for signs of life; signs of hope.
Today,
don't let the circumstances of our war-mongering world cause you to lose
faith. Beneath it all, we are straining toward the light, and that
light is still alive and well and increasing each day. May you feel
the energy of hope flowing from it. Lean into it.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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