We are living in unusual times. The world is amidst transcendent change, and like a fish, we can’t yet see beyond the water we reside in because we’re still surviving the storm. Long buried roots of complacency are shaking loose. People are dying. People are surviving. Hearts are breaking open in a global movement with awakenings of massive proportions.
It’s exciting and terrifying. We feel helpless and find power in presence. We react in stunned silence and thankfully our breath continues automatically without a reminder. We were born to be part of this experience. As we burn away the long-held wounds we create more light within. We are lightworkers.
Discard the old paradigm that awakened ones have no problems, don’t feel conflict and heartache. Embrace the new paradigm that awakened ones stand in full awareness of the pain and joy around them, witness incredible wonders like a squirrel’s playful pawing of a wind chime. Awakened ones feel the raw pain of heartache, loss and suffering.
Like the ocean, we ebb and flow in both sides of life – love and fear. We hold the wisdom to stand steady and allow the flow of love and fear move through us. The winds are our breath.
We stand present in silence following our breath as it holds us steady through this storm.
“At a time when the world seems the most divided, there is a unity expanding in each heart to heal the wounds of a spiritually-disconnected society.” - Matt Kahn
“On December 21, two planets that are actually 400 million miles apart will be aligned in such a way that, to the naked eye, they should look like one exceptionally bright star. Probably. Even that is speculation because the last time they were so closely aligned was during the Middle Ages, back in 1226.” - Coggin Heeringa, Program Director/Naturalist, Crossroads at Big Creek, a member of the Door Peninsula Astronomical Society of Sturgeon Bay Wisconsin.
The Astronomical Society facebook page hopes to broadcast images from the Leif Everson Observatory on YouTube Live and the Night Skies Network.
A Winter Solstice Prayer - Edward Hays from Prayers for a Planetary Pilgrim.
The dark shadow of space leans over us. . . . . We are mindful that the darkness of greed, exploitation, and hatred also lengthens its shadow over our small planet Earth. As our ancestors feared death and evil and all the dark powers of winter, we fear that the darkness of war, discrimination, and selfishness may doom us and our planet to an eternal winter.
May we find hope in the lights we have kindled on this sacred night, hope in one another and in all who form the web-work of peace and justice that spans the world.
In the heart of every person on this Earth burns the spark of luminous goodness; in no heart is there total darkness. May we who have celebrated this winter solstice, by our lives and service, by our prayers and love, call forth from one another the light and the love that is hidden in every heart. Amen.
Participants’ Reflections:
I liked the whole thing about the star. A star made by the alignment of Jupiter and Saturn. It’s going to make this very bright appearance in the sky as a symbol of hope. It’s what we need right now is hope. All the things that happened in these last nine months haven’t been in vain. You said it’s a new paradigm, it’s an opportunity. Look at this beautiful group meditating in the early morning hours. All these blessings that have come to us and opportunities to reassess our lives and what we’re doing in it; social justice. People are zooming in to all kinds of things. So even though there’s been some terrible things that have happened. The appearance of this astronomical event, to me is causing me to pause like wow. We need this desperately to have something beautiful that’s like a source of light coming from the sky, like the Earth is trying to clean itself up. Those are my meditation thoughts this morning.
I just wanted to mention in addition to the conjunction of the planets, Jupiter is moving from Capricorn which is an earth sign into Aquarius which is an air sign so there’s even greater things going on. We just had a solar eclipse also in the new moon and there’s solar flares going to be happening very quickly as well. So there’s all kinds of astronomical things happening to help shift the energy.
I don’t know why this came to me this morning when you were saying fear and love. It’s really both and why I didn’t see that before – it’s like I’ve been wanting to be rid of the fear and be love centered, but it’s really both. That was really clear when the pain of heartache, fear and love both going there at the same time. I’m just going to ponder that some more today. Thank you.
That was very powerful and lot to think about. What you remind me of is Attar’s second valley where he says there is no difference between the good and the bad. I thought about that. During the meditation I wanted to relieve that notion of dark being bad and light being good, that there’s both in both. I needed to extend myself beyond that and I asked myself what is beyond that? It’s ritual. In ritual, we can put out in expectancy what we want and not identify what’s good and bad but be open to what’s coming. I got into a lot of gratitude, and my biofeedback monitor showed that. I think I made progress with aligning my heart into coherence today.
When I think about it, our bodies are metaphors to the ebb and flow, the in and out, the inbreath and outbreath. We inhabit it all. Life is a metaphor.
I also read on the Internet the aligning of these two planets was probably depicted as the Bethlehem Star so many centuries ago because it was so incredibly bright in the sky. It gave people hope. I think that these days approaching the solstice are intense for a purpose. It’s very validating to know that it culminates in something like this, to me.
My family and I are certainly broken open and it concerns me because instead of feeling like my compassion and patience and love is still intact and that will never change, but I feel more and more closed and being overwhelmed. A pastor once said to me that my situation is impossible with what I had to do to try to get my family member well with a particular type of living environment which is literally impossible to find and incredibly expensive which I don’t have the resources for. But at any rate, I don’t like the feeling of closing down. I’m not giving up hope, but it’s not as strong as it used to be. On the other side of that, I so appreciate this group.
A few days ago, I passed an old Victorian house. There was a big tree out front and the whole tree was decorated with vintage lights. I wish I could really draw and I would draw that tree with all the beautiful limbs with ornaments and a couple of squirrels curiously playing with the lights.
I appreciate so much hearing your painful sharing and experiencing your pain. I thought a great deal about you yesterday. My sense when you were talking about closing down, I’m grateful there are parts closing down in the sense it’s a buffer for you from the continual deluge of what’s happening. I’m inspired by how remarkable you are.
My birthday is the solstice. All the discussion about everything being aligned and offering hope is quite appealing to me.
I see you standing under the sky and feeling aligned with the incredible, immense changes of the world, coming into alignment.
There’s a lot of good people, including us, doing good work to help in this time. I hope you all feel that: that even though we may be in pain and tears come, it’s not a failure. It’s opening up to what is, accepting who we are/ It’s changing day to day.
My interview with the Chronic Conversations will be available tomorrow. I met the woman at the Suffering the Silence conference. The podcast is about the caregiver and caregivee. The link is on my website under upcoming events. There are a lot of good people doing good work in this time. I hope you all feel that. You may be in pain, you may be crying, but it is not a failure. It is opening up to what is and accepting it as a truth of where we are and it changes from day to day.
I hope you all have a blessed day. Have gratitude for our ability to keep breathing as we live through each day. We are in this together. This is an anchor. It sits deep within the ocean of life.
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