Decades ago, I attended a Winter Solstice event at the Timothy Eaton Church in Toronto. There was prayer and singing as the ritual evolved with a gradual lessening of the light until all were there, feeling each other’s life energy supporting one another in the seeming emptiness of complete darkness. All was still, a moment full of mystery blanketed by darkness and silence.
That trembling moment of standing in the absolute present, without guideposts to enable action also called forth an inner exploration of the energy moving within each of us individually as women, as beings, as one small part of the living being that is Cosmos and animates us all. Imagine a Celtic cross, with energy moving north and south, east and west; from the Holy One to each individual and the depth of their being and then each individual sharing that energy with each other enclosed by a circle of safety, belief and wonder with the Centre bringing forth a cosmic crash of birthing light. There we were in one holy circle.
Our society stresses action and doing, not being. It is difficult to remain in the darkness of expectant waiting when our world seems bereft and empty, when all that we have seen and known is taken away from us. It is sometimes near impossible to remember that the light is ever-present while not visible and that life is gestating and preparing to birth again. At least this was the case for me when our dearest daughter, Kristina, died in a tragic car accident on Easter Sunday, 1991. The powerful transmission of spiritual energy between the generations was suddenly curtailed; I felt suspended in the deep darkness of loss without knowing the way out. It would take years of psychological and spiritual direction before a safe path was hewed through the wild and untamed forests of grief.
Two experiences sustained me then and still do. That night at the hospital while praying with two Associate friends, the words from Isaiah, “You have given all to me, now I return it” were all I was able to articulate, yet their gift was the confirmation of a sure, unwavering faith in the cycle of life and the sacred mystery that is the Holy. And then came the dream that called me “to the sanctuary, or spiritual center of my being” and took me “beyond linear and spatial limits” to a new consciousness (Geri Grubbs. Bereavement Dreaming and the Individuating Soul. Berwick, Maine: Nicolas-Hays, Inc, 2004). In the dream,
Kristina and I are walking along a dark alley when suddenly, she falls into a deep rectangular-shaped hole. Desperate to rescue her, I climb down the rocky face to rescue her. The descent into the hole is slow and scary but I manage to do it. Lo and behold, there she is – just as she was – but cradled in a manger filled with straw! I am surprised that it is not dark down here; the space is filled with a deep, golden, warming light. I figure that we will have to climb up the way I came down but miraculously, over to the right, is a shiny, copper ladder fixed against the wall. We climb up, me first; I woke before I ever knew if she made it out.
She taught me that no matter how dark it may seem, there is always an ember of Light to sustain us; that, in fact, an ever-present Holy Fire animates our spirit if only we have eyes to see. And when it is time and we are ready, like the mythical Persephone we will be provided with all we need to rise up and out of the earth and flourish once again.
Since that time thirty-one years ago, I have become a sacred circle dancer. We always have special dances that honour the Solstices. Part of me never quite understood why dancers were asked to wear white during the darkness of our Winter Solstice Celebrations. Now I do!
-Susan Hendricks, Associate of the Sisters of St. Joseph
