Winter Solstice 2021

I was up before dawn yesterday, which was not a particular feat given the circumstance of the shortest daylight of the year.  There was a bit more energy in my oldish bones this morning, most likely brought on by the looming deadline of Christmas in four days.  In an astounding similarity to last year's situation, I am nowhere near ready to celebrate.  There are piles of clutter everywhere, moved from their usual spots to make way for the still-bare pine tree in our living room.  Plastic tubs of cookies, some waiting to be iced, are positioned precariously on the dining table.  They were supposed to be baked and shipped along with family Christmas cards a week ago...then Monday...then yesterday.  Now it's looking like a scramble to the post office before it closes at noon tomorrow, or the extended family is getting to celebrate the Twelve Days of Christmas as we do, and receive their gifts before Epiphany.

I was pondering all this as I stood at my kitchen window midday, midway through my to-do list (yes, that energy did kick in a bit).  I was also birdwatching, a lovely way to avoid tasks made convenient by the bird feeders hanging from our children's old playscape in the backyard.  The feeders have been popular this week:  bluejays, doves, cardinals, Bewick wrens, sparrows, titmice, chickadees, woodpeckers, and European starlings have been stuffing themselves for a winter that doesn't seem to want to arrive.

Yes, our forecast from now until January 2022 calls for short sleeves from here on out with highs in the eighties. Santa may have to trade his boots for flip-flops, one meteorologist joked on tv.

As I watched the birds, my gaze drifted down to the patio, where a butterfly was flitting about my scrawny looking milkweed plants.  A queen, by the looks of it; could have been the caterpillar that was munching on those same plants a few weeks ago.  An odd sight for Winter Solstice, I thought, as the butterfly sampled the flowers.  Wait a minute, they don't eat from milkweed flowers. They...

Sure enough, it bent its abdomen to the underside of one leaf, then flew to another, did it again...and again...and again. 

Butterfly eggs on Winter Solstice.  And they just may survive, given our sultry days ahead.  It's been another odd year of pandemic circumstances; why not add winter butterflies to the mix?  

Waiting in the dark--Spiritual Journey Thursday

 

I'm hosting this month's Spiritual Journey Thursday.

Inspired by Henri Nouwen, I chose the theme of waiting.

"To wait open-endedly is an enormously radical attitude toward life.  ...The spiritual life is a life in which we wait, actively present to the moment, trusting that new things will happen to us, new things that are far beyond our own imagination, fantasy, or prediction.  That, indeed, is a very radical stance toward life in a world preoccupied with control."

--Nouwen, "A Spirituality of Waiting", 1993.

 

Lady of the Sea statue, Anacortes, WA

Sit with me, and wait.

Wait in the darkness, 

lingering in the mornings, 

stealing our afternoons.

Sit with me, and wait.

Wait as we wrap gifts

Sing to beckon redemption

Light candles to illuminate the night.

Sit with me, and wait.

Wait as the Mother 

pregnant with Hope

content in knowing it will arrive.

Sit with me, and wait.

--Christine Margocs, 2021

*************

"There is not enough night left for us.  We have lost our true instincts for darkness, its invitation to spend some time in the proximity of our dreams.  Our personal winters are so often accompanied by insomnia: perhaps we're drawn towards that unique space of intimacy and contemplation, darkness and silence, without really knowing what we're seeking.  Perhaps, after all, we are being urged towards our own comfort.

...Over and again, we find that winter offers us liminal spaces to inhabit.  Yet still we refuse them.  The work of the cold season is to learn to welcome them."

 

--Katherine May, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times, 2020.

I awaken long before dawn.

Night-black windows 

guard against the intrusion 

of the day's demands.

My movements are slow, 

shuffling down the hall,

remnants of dreams like spiderwebs in my hair

I treasure this time

when I can be me

beyond wife, mother, worker

When those dreams are more real

than the unseen world outside.

--Christine Margocs, 2021

************** 

And so we wait. We wait for the cookies to bake, the packages to arrive, the family to gather.  We wait for the longest night and the lengthening days beyond.  We wait for stuffed stockings and phone calls from home.  We wait, knowing that things will get better, because we have been given the Promise in Love's form, bringing Light to the darkness of Winter and weariness of Soul.

We wait in Hope.

  

 Thank you for taking this Spiritual Journey with me this December!