Shortest day, Longest night

On this day, light is limited and dark is long...and then we come out from under a proverbial rock, and bit by bit the light grows. At 4:21 am, the exact moment of the winter solstice, like a switch nature turns a corner leaning into the light. The imagery is fabulous, the metaphorical extraordinary. For those of us who have been marking this season as a time of rebirth, we have come to what the Lamaze birthing world calls the third stage, transition breathing. The birth is near, the baby has settled into the birth canal, and soon she will see the light of the world.

Whatever you are birthing this Advent season will come into the light and all will be well...eventually. This can also be the most painful time in the birth process. (I remember comparing it to having knives inside me.) A poem from The Prophet, Khalil Gibran reminded me of the process and also of the good ending.

“It is said that before entering the sea

A river trembles with fear.

She looks back at the path she has travelled,

from the peaks of the mountains, the long winding road crossing forests and villages.

And in front of her, she sees an ocean so vast, that to enter there seems nothing more than to disappear forever.

But there is no other way.

The river can not go back.

Nobody can go back.

To go back is impossible in existence.

The river needs to take the risk of entering the ocean because only then will fear disappear because that’s where the river will know it’s not about disappearing into the ocean, but of becoming the ocean.”

~ Khalil Gibran

May we all face the ocean, embracing it as the Light for which we have been searching, knowing that the risk is not as great as the joy of becoming...whole, ourselves, and at one with God.

Don't forget to breathe!!!