Making it through the dark nights

Rough week. It is so dark…and getting darker.  

The winter solstice is still almost 2 weeks away. December 21st we mark the longest night and the fact that they aren’t going to get any shorter. The light wins… every December… so far.

While Pagan families mark this season of Yule, Christians celebrate Christmas with lights, our Jewish families celebrate Hanukkah with a menorah and African American families may choose to light the Kwanzaa kinara… light is how we fight against the darkness. Light is a universal symbol of hope, the light goes away and it always comes back. That’s what it is all about, isn’t it? That the night is always followed by the dawn and when we believe that we can get through just about anything. Winter is manageable because we know how amazing spring will be.

This dark holiday month is hard on lots of people. Few of us have an internal life that measures up to the expectations of how we think it is suppose to be. Facebook and Christmas cards are edited versions of the moment in our messy life that we feel best about sharing.

Light a candle and be someone’s hope. Look around. See the people in your life, in your neighborhood, at work. There are people there who are wearing a thin smile, who might look like they are doing ok but need to know that you can see them.

If this is the first holiday you have had to face since the divorce or since a loss or if finances are scarce or the world’s instability is overwhelming you, try not to go it alone. Reach out, ask for support and help and make people see you.

I don’t expect it to get light this week. I’ve done this journey around the sun more than a couple of times… I know the path. It gets darker for awhile… and then..

To all of you who are journeying with me through the dark nights, this isn’t our first rodeo-we’ve got this.

M