“Only in the darkness can you see the stars.”Martin Luther King Jr. |
It's December 21, 2012 and in the northern hemisphere the winter solstice. It is the darkest day of the year, but also one of my favorites, since from here, the days get longer, or rather, the amount of light we gain each day will become longer. The light will increase by seconds at first, and then to minutes, eventually leading to one of my other favorite days, the summer solstice.
There will also be the galactic alignment today.
This alignment took 26,000 years to occur,
and now as one cycle ends another begins...
It has been a week of sadness here in the U.S. after the events in Newtown, Connecticut. Hearts everywhere are heavy for the loss. It has got me to thinking about light and darkness and about grief and hope.......And how when we are experiencing times of great darkness and grief, somewhere on the other side there is light and hope.........this I think, is what we reach for.......
So, tonight, if you by chance are outside looking at the great vastness of dark......remember the stars.....reach for the light....
So, tonight, if you by chance are outside looking at the great vastness of dark......remember the stars.....reach for the light....
With much love,
“Silently, one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven,
Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels.”
― Henry Wadsworth LongfellowTHE PEACE OF WILD THINGS
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
— Wendell Berry
"There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it." -- Edith Wharton
