Summer Solstice 2012...

... lots been churning, burning, inside myself over the past weeks and months - half a dozen 'works-in-progress' posts sitting in the draft queue...

and none of it is ready to be put out into the world yet...

so, I shall communicate what I can...

AND wish you all a happy, happy solstice - may the sun bring us all sanity, peace and joy as we celebrate the longest day and move into summer here in the northern hemisphere...

  

and for my children moving into the dark of winter in the antipodes, I say: "I love you and I miss you, as does the boy..."

 

Namaste

Out With The Old?

There's a flaw in my perception that I have known about for years and not been able to eradicate...

Somehow, somewhere I have come to believe that everything will change/get better once realisation occurs...

Or after an energetically special time (like Solstice/Yule/Christmas/New Year)...

And I ALWAYS have to deal with the disappointment that things have not magically transformed...

Or at least not in any discernible way in that time frame...

And then its back to dealing with the reality of the chaos we are creating/living through on the way to a new pattern in the kaleidoscope of life...

 

Russ offered: " It's been my experience that even broken bones once set properly and healing correctly still hurt and the change is imperceptible for a time! Just remember that even seeds of change need time to grow!" 

 

And Doug sent me these words and this clip:
"Halfway into the third part of this very informative presentation, this segment examines exactly what you're talking about. And after years of feeling this way, this clip finally helped be break this mental pattern. Highly recommended watch."

 

 

Ring Out, Wild Bells...

A Facebook friend today posted the following extract of a poem, saying that for him it:

"strikes the perfect tone for the dying of one year, and the birth of another. 

We know, if we've lost someone in our lives, how that loss has many qualities that continue to unfold for the rest of our lives. 

These qualities seem to travel on parallel paths, often intersecting, to keep life rich with complexity that is equally often difficult to fathom...we press on.

We celebrate that our breath still feeds us through all struggle, and of course when the ease of it is similarly astonishing, we are breathing then as well, though perhaps those breaths are not drawn so deeply, or somehow the lightness of them belies the depths they plumb..." 

 Excerpted From: 

In Memoriam A. H. H., by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more,
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out thy mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

 

 

Happy Solstice - December 21!

The ancient ones celebrated two solstices each year:  the Summer Solstice - the longest day of the year, and the Winter Solstice - the shortest day and longest night.

The Winter Solstice falls on December 21, and this year, 2010, it coincides with a full moon and a full lunar eclipse.   It's been 456 years since the Solstice and a lunar eclipse coincided.

The shortest day and the longest night is a time for Wiccans and Pagans to celebrate the return of the light in the depth of midwinter.

Yule is the ancient Saxon word for this festival, and many of the traditions that are still followed today have their origins in pre-history. 

The Celtic Festival of Yule is one of the most evocative and significant festivals for Pagans and Wiccans. 

The Wheel of the Year always turns, but the ancients believed that the wheel  stops briefly at this time of the Winter Solstice.

It was taboo to turn a wheel, or even a butter churn, on the shortest day. 

This time of stillness was a precious opportunity to consider the year gone by from a point of stillness, and, equally calmly, a chance to look forward to the increasingly active months to come.

The shortest day is a festival of rebirth, when Wiccans and Pagans choose what to take with them into the New Year, and what to leave behind.

Winter Solstice celebrations are a time of relaxation, retreat and feasting. 

Pagans and Wiccans spend the days leading up to, and following on from, the Winter Solstice in grateful reflection on life, enjoying plenty and laughter with friends and family, as far removed as possible from the strains and stresses of everyday life.
 

Mistletoe cut from the oak at this still moment of the year was seen as a sacred fruit, a sign of life in the darkness of the winter.

Cut so as to touch only cloth, and never hands, the mistletoe placed on a solstice altar was a potent symbol of fertility - leading to the tradition of lovers kissing under the mistletoe!

The holly wreath symbolizes the wheel of the year, one of the many ancient traditions that pass unnoticed into the modern era. 

For Pagans and Wiccans today, holly is a symbol of renewed direction in life, and the blood-red berries are a potent representation of fertility and new life.

LYRICS:

Chorus:
Enter the night and you'll find the light,
That will carry you to your dreams.
Enter the night, let your spirit take flight,
In the field of infinite possibilities

On the longest night we search for the light,
And we find it deep within.
Open your eyes to embrace what is wise,
And see the light of your own soul shining.

(Chorus)
Wrap up in the cloak of starry darkness my child,
And you'll find the center of all things.
For from this space of the deepest dark place,
Life Eternal does spring.

(Chorus)
So when you find that spark
When you dream in the dark,
Hold it close to your heart and know.
All that you see is all that can be
When you give birth to the dreams of your soul.

(Chorus)