I have been musing on the light and the dark this month. This topic has been coming to me from many different angles, as is often the case with a lesson that I need.
I signed up for Toko-Pa Turner’s podcast series. She is new to me and I am a bit obsessed. Check her out! The first interview was a discussion about the fairytale, Sleeping Beauty. I admit that I was not excited when I heard the topic of fairytales. Bleh! But it was a deep and rich analysis of what fairytales represent. They picked apart every aspect of that story. Now I’m hooked on the topic! The mystery of the tale of Sleeping Beauty, or Briar Rose, that keeps coming back to me is that the King, you may remember, invited only 12 of the 13 wise women of the land to a banquet honoring his newborn daughter. At this banquet, the wise women/witches were to bestow their gifts and blessings upon her. The witch who was left out was outraged by the slight and cursed his daughter. What I have been wondering is WHY was she not invited? And what was her gift? I keep thinking that maybe her gift was pain and suffering. We so often see, after the fact, that pain and suffering are such valuable gifts. But who wants to sign up for THAT gift?! And don’t we do anything possible to spare our children from (the gift of) pain and suffering? It’s easy to hear about the darkness and light both being important, and we get it conceptually, but when it comes to your children being in the midst of darkness, well, darkness doesn’t seem like such a gift. And when darkness comes upon us, yeah we’d just rather go ahead and pass on that gift.
I had another opportunity to examine the darkness and light when I gathered online with a group of heart-minded women for Imbolc. Imbolc is celebrated on February 1 – the half way point between the winter solstice and the Spring Equinox. It is a time to mark the hope of the coming light. A time to recognize potential, to plant seeds, to make room for growth. It’s also a time to acknowledge the necessity of the darkness, and the gifts that the dark winter brings – more rest, less activity, more reflection.
My third opportunity came via the “On Being” podcast interview with author Katherine May on her book “Wintering”. She looks at the dark winter as both a cycle of the natural world, and as a season in our lives. Embracing both the winter and the summer, the light and the dark, the good times and the bad, the joy and the pain. A remembering that the winter season comes – literally and metaphorically - and it goes. It’s all a part of the process. Every season has a purpose. There is a season, turn, turn, turn…do you hear that song in your head too ;-).
And lastly, in a very literal way, I have been working in our finished basement lately. There’s not much natural light down here. I normally CRAVE the light that the window filled main level provides. But I have been thriving in the low light of the downstairs space these past few months, feeling cradled and cocooned by Mother Earth.
In Indiana this stretch to warmer weather is the toughest. It seems like spring will never come. It’s the same feeling I get in a wintering season of my own. When I broke my shoulder a few years ago, I thought I would never heal, I would never be independent again, I would never be “normal” again. But it was just a wintering season, and it brought so many gifts – I learned to ask for help, I learned that I had SO MANY beautiful supportive people in my life that would do countless loving acts to nurture me, I learned to slow down and rest. And lots of other gifts too, but this post is getting long. And COVID…a collective wintering…
So this season I am focusing on the gifts of wintering – literally and metaphorically. All of the seasons should have a seat at the table. Like it or not, they’re coming to the banquet. We may as well just set a place for them, welcome them to the party, and accept their gifts with gratitude.