Gifts of the Solstice

Today is the Winter Solstice.  It is the shortest day and the longest night of the year.  We felt it coming.  These days, the light seemed to end too soon. The leaves have mostly fallen from the deciduous trees and the migratory birds are now gone to warmer places.  The lake is practising freezing over and the chipmunks haven`t been seen for a while now.  We gave them lots of corn and peanuts in the fall and we imagine them now hunkered in their underground dens sleeping and eating.  We feel like hunkering by the fireplace and doing the same.

Traditionally at this time, people have festivals that feature light and fire.  They gather to feast and celebrate and tell stories with family and friends.  Somehow we are more open to the kindnesses and needs of strangers at this time of year.  Somehow at this transition from getting darker to getting lighter, the mundane becomes magical and our guards are lowered.  We allow the joy and the pain of others into our own hearts.

I read a story in the newspaper about Mike Mallard, a homeless man in Toronto.  At this time of year he collects cans and bottles to exchange for money which he uses to buy Christmas ornaments from the dollar store.  Then he decorates a tree in the local park for everyone to enjoy.  He said that it makes him think of home and his 91 year old mom who lives up north.  Readers responded with offers to help Mike go to see his mom for Christmas.  It was easy for people to understand his desire to see his mom.  Most people have had a mom at some time and moms know they would like to see their children.  Mike responded that he would like to see the money used to help other homeless people.  “That would be so much better,” he said.  “But I`d also love to see my mom…” he mused. (Metro News, Dec. 14, 2017). 

I am at that age when I and some of my friends have aged parents as well as grandchildren.  We watch our parents become more fragile, more vulnerable and move in to fill the gaps.  It is a delicate balance between helping and taking over.  It is a dance to offer assistance to make life enjoyable and to take care of physical, mental and emotional needs as our parents let go of abilities, responsibilities and memories while not treating them as children. Honouring the wisdom they have gathered through their lives and respecting their rights to live their lives in their own ways invites us to lower our guards, open our hearts and grow more comfortable in our own skin while we prepare ourselves for our own aging and the inevitable loss of our parent. 

It seems to be the opposite of caring for a new baby.  The eyes of a new born suggest that they have come into this world with all the wisdom of the universe.  There is a knowing in their wide open gaze.  We offer them welcome and often feel what seems to be an surprising if not seemingly  unreasonable amount of joy at their arrival.  Families rally, especially if the baby is early or has special needs.  From out of seeming nowhere, comes strength, love and patience.  These tiny beings draw out our best.  They help new parents to grow up overnight.  Grandparents remember their own babies who are somehow these new competent parents and still their own babies all at once.  How did that happen so fast, they wonder. Life seems brighter and more hopeful as we delight in every new accomplishment of this new one.

I was pondering these things as I recently walked through the forest, newly covered in snow.  The forest is a wonderful place to work things out.  It is quiet and beautiful and the trees offer their own wisdom.  Tiny saplings, fallen ancient trees, and mighty adults all have their interconnected place in the life of a forest.  I began thinking of life as a straight line with a beginning and an end but that didn`t seem to fit at all. It didn`t accurately describe what I was seeing all around me.

Then the idea of a circle came to me.  I imagined my partner`s new baby grandson on the circle. And then his parents and grandparents a little further on and even further on his great grandfather who was now very close to the newborn on the circle in my imagination.  I thought of all of them travelling this circle, circumnavigating life together and that seemed to work for me.  It seemed to fit with what I was seeing as I walked down the snowy wooded paths.

As the earth circumnavigates its ancient pathway around the sun there are transitions points which we mark; spring and fall equinoxes and the summer and winter solstices.  They are an opportunity for us to pay attention to the bigger celestial picture.  Just like the transitions of birth and death, they take us outside of ordinary time.  They invite us to be present, to enter the transitions of others and walk with them, learn from them and understand how we are connected as we travel together. Transitions offer us gifts.  Not the kind you wrap and put under a tree but the kind that you carry with you always.  These are the gifts I wish for you this solstice.