Winter’s settled in and I got a cold nose
Cold ears, cold fingers and cold toes
Hunchin’ my shoulders as the icy wind blows
Wish I was a bear so I could hibernate til winter goes
It’s mid winter where I am right now, how about you? And then there’s weather as metaphor too, right? You can be in mid summer with an icy heart.
The solstice spiral
There’s a tradition at the school that my daughter goes to and parents are welcome. You walk into a very dark room, with others, together, in silence. You’re holding an unlit candle. It’s unsettling, barely any light at all. Slowly the eyes adjust. You start to make out greenery laid out in a spiral that weaves it’s way toward the centre, where a single candle burns a little flame in the otherwise dark room. One by one, you walk the spiral, holding your unlit candle. At the centre, you kneel down and light your candle from the source candle. As you return back along the spiral, you place your lit candle down. As everyone does this, one by one, the spiral lights up.
It’s beautiful
My rational, sceptical mind finds it a little weird. At first. Because I’ve got better things to do. A to-do list waaay longer than the spiral. So… why am I here? Because each time I walk the spiral I get teary. It doesn’t make me teary. It allows the tears that I’ve put a lid on to be released. And that’s a great relief. And I’m not sure why I weep. And that’s a relief too; that I don’t have to understand things. (Don’t get me wrong, understanding is great, it’s just that I can get a addicted to making sense of things, and, in that silent ritual, this compulsive thinking dissipates almost instantly, because… well, you see, I don’t know why.)
I’m told the candle in the centre represents the inner light that is always present, even in the longest, darkest night. And that light grows and can light other lights. Maybe that’s why I weep.
Many of us long for, seek out, or create ritual that nourishes and sustains. It doesn’t have to be formal, like the spiral walk. We have a ritual at home. Making slow cooked broth. It’s good for the body. I was going to say ‘and for the soul.’ But are they so different? Is the body a machine, or perhaps, an expression of consciousness?
What gets you through the long winter? Song and soup help. So to cover both bases I wrote a song… about soup.
Happy Solstice.