It’s the evening of the Winter Solstice and the stars are shining clear in the cold of the longest night. I woke up this morning in the quiet of the dawn and felt myself in the warm, gentle space between asleep and awake; winding the threads of my dreams around my fingers to pull them back to my conscious mind. I was flying on the island that, in waking life, is a physical location of my heart. In the dream, there were no stairs in the house I know so well; just pull-down ladders and holes in the floor that I had to pull my body up and through. The floor above, warm, receiving me, music playing on a distant record player. Even though I couldn’t see the whole room from my emergence into it, I knew that it was glowing with lights and decorated in rich, velvety red.
We are in the Dreaming Time, in the time of the Dark, in the time of the generative womb-space where we plant the seeds of all that will emerge in the quickening of Spring. I’ve found that my dreams in the past weeks have floated like messages in bottles from my body to my waking mind. This is true always, but especially in this time, when the Dark holds court and we must learn how to navigate through the rich otherworlds of our other senses. Feeling, Hearing, Touch, Smell and Taste, our Spirit and our Gut and the knowing rivers of wisdom which flow outside the language of linearity. None of them dependent on the Light. All of them wisdom-keepers for us in this time. When one sense diminishes, the others become more vibrant. All Parts of us, all fluent in the ways they gift us with in-sight, with information about our worlds; inner and outer. What happens when you remove the Light? What doorways open to other ways of knowing? What is there, just beneath what is perceivable when light waves bounce off of the surface of something, creating our vision? The entire inside of us abides in the realm of the Dark. It is only our exterior which reflects the Light, creating our visible perception of self. How do we hear the stories that are told in the Dark around the hearth fire of the heart?
What have your Dreams been telling you?
A dear person in my life and I have a practice of narrating our dreams to one another upon waking. Each morning that we meet in this practice I find that, through the practice of speaking them out loud, I remember more than I thought I knew. Through trusting my Voice and the modality of sound, more is revealed. When I get more parts of me involved, more can speak.
This darkest night gives us the opportunity to go inward and to light a tiny candle, the smallest beginning of Light. What does your candle feel like? Can you deepen your touch-sense to feel each concentric ring of wax, the porous cotton spine? Can you hear the voice of the flame? Can you smell the wax, the smoke, the warm air? Can you hold it close to your mouth and taste the warmth in the air, like the returning sun, on your tongue? Can you draw all of these senses within, gathering them to you like pulling all of your limbs in close to your body, to touch a moment of stillness?
I’ve spent the past year acutely tuned to the rhythms of the waxing and waning of the Light. Close to 10 years ago, my vision changed. I woke up one morning in April to my visual world saturated in flashing, flickering, pixelated pulses of Light. Everything was moving, dazzling Light, every shape had outlines of itself around it that flashed to their own pulses. The whole of my vision was awash in millions of tiny, iridescent pixels. Sparks darted to and fro in the blue sky, patterns of neon purple mandalas slid up walls and across ceilings. With my eyes closed, the same dance, patterns of neon purple spiraling in fractals as I stared down an eternally moving neon purple tunnel. (Or, perhaps, I am eternally moving?) It’s all still like that to this day, though I’ve learned to look “through it”. Recently it’s received a name: Visual Snow Syndrome. As I write this my fingers move on the keyboard as bands of light flicker and flash, the room around me made up of millions of points of moving, full-spectrum Light. Pratyahara has been a refuge for me, the only Quiet Place. Part of me is tired and wishes it would change. Part of me is grateful for the ways it has changed me.
A little over a year ago, my vision changed again. I looked up at a street light and it was five times its size - starred out in dazzling points of Light. I looked down the stretch of quiet winter street, every light a shimmering star. Traffic lights, wide soft spheres of red, yellow, green. This was a bridge too far for my brain and, since that day, I’ve not been able to be in a car at night, as a driver or as a passenger, without covering my eyes for the duration of the trip. The consequence for looking at the Light in the dark is a neurological scramble of unrelenting nausea, a surge in the flashing light, and a migraine that lasts for days. I’ve learned to yield, I’ve learned to adapt, I’ve learned to ask for help, I’ve learned to track the sun as if my safety depends on it. Every day by sundown, I must be home, or with someone who can bring me home, or prepared to spend the night wherever I am.
The solstices have taken on such significance to me in this time. At the peak of Summer solstice I felt a tiny fear: each day my world would get a little smaller, the restriction just a little tighter, my tether just a little closer to home. The invitation into the long stretch of quiet, a little longer. I’ve been grateful, in a way, to be so closely woven with the Light. I cherish the quiet nights in my home, the ways the Sky and I are in the same rhythm. Tonight, though, tonight, profound relief. Joy close to tears, that the longest night is upon us. I sit with a candle made by a dear friend lit beside me, smelling the warm wax, feeling the soft texture of its candle body, admiring the heat and the ritual and the tiny prayer, so, so grateful that tomorrow, there will be just a little more Light. Each day, like the Sun, I will be able to be outside of my celestially-woven home for just a few more minutes.
Navigating the world the past year, I’ve spent a good amount of time with my eyes closed. In the car, I blindfold myself with hoodies and hats, sometimes scarves tied around my face. Tonight I observed the Solstice with my sweetheart on a tiny island accessible by road. Paper bag lanterns lined the edge of the shore and the sun set, rich and orange, across the soft, still sea. It was completely dark by the time we turned for home. Cars drove along the road, lanterns lit, children with flashlights, I tried to cover my eyes and navigate by myself. Instead, they reached out their hand and said “I can lead you.” In exchange for trying to use my vision, making my way forward by half-looking to the side, flashes of light slipping in through my fingers and hitting me in the stomach, I got the Solstice gifts of feeling my hand in theirs; warm and capable and caring, my feet connected to the ground, the winter air on my face, the smell of seaweed and sand and the incoming tide. Their honey-soft voice telling me about the people they saw, the things that they thought would bring me delight.
The gifts that come in the Dark.
The gifts that come when we close our eyes and turn to other ways of perceiving.
The gifts that come when we draw all of our senses within, and perceive the Truth that remains.
Happy Longest Night, Happy Return of the Light, Solstice Blessings to you All.
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