Return to the Light

“A jigsaw puzzle?' Amren fitted a tiny piece into the section she'd been working on. 'Am I supposed to be doing something else during my Solstice holiday?”

(Sarah J. Maas, A Court of Frost and Starlight)

The night

grows long

not to punish us,

but to reveal ourselves.

In the deepest dark,

the world bends inward,

as if all creation

were taking a single breath

before speaking again.

This is the season

when time loosens its grip.

When crowns are set aside

and servants become kings.

When Saturn laughs,

and the old laws rest.

Saturnalia reminds us

that order is holy

only when it remembers joy.

Candles are lit

not to defeat the dark,

but to accompany it.

One flame,

then another,

until the night itself

begins to glow.

Hanukkah teaches us

that endurance is a quiet miracle,

and that light multiplies

when shared.

In the far North,

the evergreen refuses despair.

Yule whispers

that life does not retreat,

it waits.

Roots hold.

Sap remembers.

The Sun pauses,

then turns.

At Newgrange,

stone learns to listen.

A single beam

finds its way

through darkness

older than language,

touching

the womb of Earth

as if to say:

You are not forgotten.

Dongzhi bows

to the return of balance.

Yin reaches fullness

so Yang may be born.

The wheel

does not break,

it turns.

Far south,

Inti is called home.

Not with fear,

but with song.

The people remember

that the Sun is not owned,

only welcomed.

In the East,

Makar Sankranti

lifts its eyes.

The river flows northward again.

Kites rise.

Seeds are blessed.

Aspiration learns

to move with grace.

In the longest night,

Shab-e Yalda keeps vigil.

Poetry is spoken.

Pomegranates are opened.

Love outlasts the dark

by telling stories

until dawn.

And threaded,

through all of this,

quiet,

steady,

unannounced,

the consciousness of Christ

whispers its song at dawn.

Not a figure on a throne,

but a frequency in the heart.

Not bound

to a creed,

but born

out of unconditional love

from everlasting love

to love

and love ever again.

Christ consciousness

is the courage to descend into the dark

without abandoning the light.

It is the child born

in the long night of the soul.

It is an affirmation

whispered

when nothing

is guaranteed,

when nothing

can be done,

when we know,

when thee knows,

that we know,

when everything

gets done

without doing anything

when everything

is said,

without saying anything,

where our faith

guides us

back home.

It is the love that says:

I am here for you.

This New Moon in Sagittarius

aims the arrow

not outward,

but inward,

toward meaning,

toward truth

that liberates,

the soul,

directed

toward a horizon

that lives within us.

We do not rush the dawn.

We prepare for it.

We light fires.

We forgive debts.

We invert old stories.

We remember what was promised.

Before fear taught us to forget.

The Solstice does not ask us

to believe the same thing.

It asks us to remember

the same movement.

That after the longest night,

the light returns.

That the world

is renewed

not by force,

but with trust.

That love,

embodied

and awake,

is the oldest

ritual of all.

And so we stand,

at the still point of the year,

holding space,

holding flame,

holding silence,

holding one another.

Waiting.

Not for salvation

from above,

but for the dawn

to rise again

in us,

through us,

with us,

as one.

Yo lo Creo/

I Believe and so it is