from darkness to light

My Christmas tree is the holiday to me.

I love to reflect on the deeper meanings of the season, and I love to remember our  connection to the people of all ages who have waited and longed and honored the coming of the light after the season of darkness.

I imagine us, dust and snow rising, our boots digging up the roots and leaves of autumn, dancing around the tree that stands in the middle of a clearing in a dark, dark, dark forest … as we dance the passing of time, as we dance the changing of the year, of this moment, of this hour, of this day.  The tree is our altar.  The star that shines above the tree is in the sky, and the sky, too, is dancing, honoring in its own way the passing of time.  As we dance, we feel in ourselves that elemental humanness, that elemental place that connects us to each other, to the tree, to the dust, to the snow, to the sky, to the star.  We are one with all.  We are one.   We feel that elemental place in our guts, in our legs, in the soles of our feet, in our whole selves.  Yes!  We feel the elemental life force of those who circle with us, those who honor darkness, and wait for light.  This is us.  This is all of humanity.

This autumn, I have written often about the descent into the darkness, that place in each of us where the light lies.  This descent into the darkness is for all of us, we are all gifted with the darkness as part of being human.  Yes!  we say into the deepness of the dark.  Yes! we say as we emerge, once again, from that dark place into another place.   We emerge, different, each time we go deep.  We grow older.  We grow wiser.  We are connected to everyone we encounter; we see ourselves in the “other.”  We carry with us, after that deeper journey, something more solid, more whole.  We know we are one with one another, with All That Is.

All of these things connect us to the suffering of the world, for in our connection is our knowing that we are all alike.  We all suffer.  We all know darkness, and we all know that life is hard.  Yes, we say, as we extend our hand to the other, as we extend our hearts into the world.  Yes!

This year, even the moon joins us in the dance.  Mother Moon will be full on the day of Christmas, the Christian way of honoring the Light.  Mother Moon will take our hand, she will sing, she will kick up the dirt and the waves in the ocean, and she will rejoice – yes! – with the coming of the Light.

However you honor the passage of time, whatever your tradition, this is your journey to yes!  Yes, yes, yes…