Happy (quivering with life) Solstice
Happy Winter Solstice!! It is the longest night, the shortest day… Outside, the maples are bare-branched, the cedars are dark. But life is stirring. This weekend, as I walked through the woods, I looked down and saw bright living green- a bracket of tight catkin buds that had fallen from the tops of the alder trees. When I looked up, I saw a sky full of them.
Life is quivering with plans for the new year. Even now. And now. And now.
After six weeks of rapid darkening since Halloween, the spark of life returns today. It can be hard to see it. It can be hard to remember that magic is possible, especially if you have walked the path to power that I walked. As a smart, young, charismatic (if I do say so myself!) leader, I was so eager. I learned all the ways to access power in the racist patriarchy: trade in wisdom, seize “savvy.” Sacrifice pleasure, embrace access. Work without end instead of making my own unique magic. (All while the Story of “Normal” was saying Get smaller. Nope, smaller still.)
But I was lucky. The whole time that I was slowly trading in magic for cynicism in my career in progressive politics, I was living a second life, learning how to be a sacred storyteller, how healthy community is in relationship with the land, how shared power looks and how it absolutely doesn’t look. (Whiteness happens in spiritual communities, too, as you know.)
I acquired a different story about what’s possible.
Which was a good thing, because when the old story eventually asked me to get too small, to die for it, I knew a little about how to author a story worth living. In that space where the old story had died, I began to ask myself: What do I think *really* works if I’m not listening to the lies about power? What if I’m listening to the power of life?
Today is a day when the power of life is aching to shine within you.
I was reminded of all of this last week as I spoke with a leader who I really admire – She is smart, strong, courageous, funny. For years, I have watched her make her mark in the campaign world. And as a powerful woman, she knew what it’s like to be persuaded by the Story of “Normal” to get smaller and smaller and smaller. For a few months, she’s been doing the wonderful, courageous work to excavate all the parts of that old story- to pluck them out of her soul thread by thread, breath by breath, session by session. And having tossed out those lies and the frantic pace and false successes that attend them, she found herself in that same place between death and new life that I found years ago.
(This is where we are now. Take a breath. There is new life which we can’t yet see.)
This amazing woman asked me, “What do I do with all this space??”
So I offered her the question that helped me. “What do you think *really* works?”
I watched it land with her, the largeness of that question when the old lies aren’t smothering your vision, your wisdom, your magic anymore.
We talked through some ways to explore this question over the holiday break and then I suggested that she also consider working with The Star card since I know that she loves the Tarot. The Star, which comes after The Tower. The Star, which is the new light after old beliefs fall.
“Ella,“ she said, “I pulled that card this morning.“
Magic, my friends, is always knocking. Today is a good day to open the door.
At this crossroads time, as we put our shoulders to the wheel of The Great Turning (Thank you, Joanna Macy!) toward a just and life-sustaining society, I wish you such a happy solstice, a merry Christmas and also a wonderful New Year. I call down the magic of The Star, the hope that shines after the death of old beliefs.
Your wisdom is powerful. What matters to you? What do you think *really* works?