Turning Towards the Dark
I am a self-proclaimed lover of fall and winter.
I enjoy the move into darkness and colder weather. Part of me longs for the hibernation of winter, a deep sigh of relief even at the thought of it. At this time of year, on the threshold between fall and winter, the talk of ancestors being close and the veil “between the worlds” being thin, offers even more to explore within ourselves and in our ancestral lineages about the growing darkness.
In my own ancestral lineages, mainly the gaelic and celtic world, it appears (as far as we can know from archeological and historical information gathered) this was a time of year to prepare for the dark and cold months and to honor the ancestors. Would there be enough harvest to keep everyone fed, enough wood for fires and warmth, enough shelter that everyone including the animals could make it until spring?
The honoring of ancestors and gods often involved offerings of some kind, gathering as a community, fires and food, perhaps in the hopes that if it pleased those on the other side, there would be more guarantee of survival.
It was a time of threshold between the harvest and the long barren winter, and between those inhabiting the land and those who had gone beyond. Death was close during the dark cold winter.
When I consider myself, I wonder what I feel closer to at this time of year? What am I longing for in the cold dark winter for myself? The line between life and death is not as imminent for me as my ancestors given the comforts of home and food, electricity and running water.
I don’t live on the edge in the same way. And yet, if I were to honor whatever edge might be present for me in this modern age, it might be one between light and dark, between activity and stillness, and a turning from outward orientation to inward orientation. Can I follow the guidance of the land and its cycles, lean into the fallow ground, the quiet and the dark to listen for a different kind of connection?
We’ve only been living in our current home for a year now, but I distinctly remember how quiet it was walking on one particular street last winter. When the snow was on the ground, early morning, cocooned by trees, evergreens and bare branches both, it was the silence that I noticed and enjoyed. I felt alive in a different way than when the spring birds are singing. It felt like the environment, the air, the land was right up close to my skin, and that I was right up against it, willingly intimate, no place to hide.
I am getting ahead of myself a bit here; we are still another month or two away from that kind of winter, but it’s coming. And likely if we pay attention enough to ourselves, we will notice some kind of response to the shift, whether we are longing for it, anticipating it, resisting it or even ignoring it.
Can we make a conscious noticing, even honoring, of whatever our experience is of this time of year? Even though the answer may not always be comfortable or pleasant, can we ask ourselves what the darkness makes us feel closer to in our lives? And what nourishes us as we head into the dark still cold night?
Three poems in the elevenie form:
Inward
Always turns
Ripe with longing
Welcomed in ready arms
Communion
Stillness
Whispers promise
From someplace within
Truth revealed in waiting
Listen
Dark
Deepens knowing
In places ancestral
No need to fear
Transformation
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