Just Before the Light…
We’ll reach the darkest day of the year on December 22nd. The winter solstice is a turning point in the year. For those of us who live in the northern hemisphere, we experience the fewest number of hours of direct sunlight on this day, but the shift toward more light begins.
Pagans celebrate the winter solstice, called Yule, as the return of the Sun. The shift from dark to light, and all that means both symbolically and literally, is what both ancient and present day pagans celebrate.
Fires are lit and the traditional Yule log is burned. Homes are decorated with sprigs of evergreen and mistletoe and there is much singing, dancing and hoping for what the future will bring. All of this is to welcome in the ever-increasing light which is on its way.
Of course, the return of the light– the increase of hours in the sun– doesn’t happen overnight. It is gradual and can feel oh so slow. On drab, dreary and frigidly cold winter days, it can seem like the warmth and new growth that comes with spring will never arrive. But it does.
Such as it often is in life.
Have you ever been in a sad, dismal and painful place in your life experience? This may have been precipitated by an unexpected shock to your system, like the breakup of a relationship, financial loss or a health crisis. Or, it could have been the accumulation of a series of set-backs, disappointments and bumps in the road.
Maybe the news of your community, country and world contribute to the darkness you feel. I know, how frightening and depressing it can be to read the mainstream news.
It can feel like there is nothing hopeful about your situation (or your world). It can also feel like things will never get better.
This is most certainly a dark place to be.
This might even be your “rock bottom” where it seems as if you’ve gone as low as you can go. Just about all of us have been in a “rock bottom” sort of place at least once in our lives. It might seem like you are stuck there now.
In difficult times, it can be easy to forget this…
It is often darkest just before the light.
The most challenging and painful experiences can be followed by times of ease, improvement and amazing breakthroughs. This is not always the way it happens, but frequently is the case.
I vividly remember giving birth to each of my two sons. Our childbirth education classes taught my husband and I that there is a period called “transition” in labor when the birthing woman usually reaches her emotional “rock bottom.” She can get fearful and doubt that she can do this at all.
For me, this is what happened.
The interesting and fabulous thing about transition is that just past the doubt and fear is the next stage of labor when it’s time to start pushing and birthing that baby. Those moments when giving birth seems absolutely impossible are the moments (maybe longer) just before the baby emerges into the world.
Nature offers us countless examples of this phenomenon. It does often get most difficult and harrowing just before the tension breaks and things fall into place the way that they need to…
Especially if we can honor this pattern and go with it as best we can.
Surrender to the dark.
If you’re in the midst of a low and painful place in your own life, remind yourself that the improvements you so desperately want may literally be just around the corner.
You might be at your “rock bottom.” One way not to get stuck there is to invite yourself to surrender to the challenges you face. It can be exhausting to constantly fight and scrape your way through. The obstacles can seem to grow and become even more impassable as you wage war against them.
Instead, why not just be with them?
This is scary and uncomfortable, I know.
I can’t count the number of times I’ve tried to ignore, push away, hide from or numb out from unwanted things going on in my life. It just doesn’t work.
However, when I courageously look at and get curious about whatever is happening, that’s when I stop the war. Meditation and free writing in my journal are two tools I use to be with painful emotions and scary situations. These tools offer me a release and safe place to get my feelings out and often they help me access invaluable insights that shift my entire perspective.
When I can just be with the challenges in my life, I surrender to the dark and it becomes less threatening and somehow easier.
Open to the light.
The powerful thing about surrendering to the dark is that it allows you to open up to the light that’s on its way– maybe sooner than you think.
Have you ever groped around in a dark room, tripping over chairs and tables trying to find your way to a lamp? Especially if you are disoriented or you don’t know the room well, you might be fumbling around right next to a lamp but you don’t know it. You can’t find it.
In order to let in that ever-increasing light that IS there for you and for us all, you’ve got to be open to it. You’ve got to pay attention to the clues, from your intuition and from the wisdom of others too, so that you can “find” it.
You’ve got to be willing to make decisions that will let in more light, love, peace, abundance and harmony.
That’s when the sun can shine fully in your life, regardless of what is going on.
