Into the dark
The winter solstice is a time of faith. Darkness gathers around us as we approach the shortest day, we light candles, decorate trees so they glitter, string up lights, and we celebrate a birth. A virgin birth.
I find the winter solstice the most hopeful, magical of days. The brilliance of the summer solstice is strangely tinged with sadness and the impending loss of light. But paradoxically the shortest day is uplifting, a turning point, each day will bring a minute more light.
The long dark night reminds me that creativity is born out of darkness, out of not knowing. The image of the Virgin Mary waiting and receiving describes the process well. Visiting the dark place of the imagination requires faith. We don’t know what, if anything, we will find, and if it will have any value when we bring it out into the light.
May you be bold this winter, go down into the dark of the imagination, be still, listen. And may new stories, images, poems, prayers and songs be born.
Carl Bennett
Well, it worked for me. I’ve almost finished a book I’ve had in my mind for 30 years. Now the days are shortest I can’t stop writing about a time in a summer when the days were long and hope was longer.
Sally Pomme
congratualtions! Sometimes the ideas that take a long time to brew are the best.
Angela Young
Thank you, Sally Pomme. I’m about to plunge back into a novel that’s taken much rewriting. I thought I’d (re)begin gently on this first day of the new year before beginning again, properly, tomorrow. But already it’s almost dark (I’ve found many reasons to resist the dark today …) but I find myself here, at my computer at last, so I shall go into the dark inside as it settles outside. Your beautiful words have given me the courage. Thank you.
Sally Pomme
Good luck Angela!