Today is the Winter’s Solstice. It is a day to feel joyful as our Earth begins its tilt in the opposite direction and we begin the slow journey back to warmer days. It is a day to celebrate, but I am pretty sure that a celebration requires two or more people. Thanks to the pandemic, I will be ushering in the light alone, burning candles and saying prayers for family and friends with only the howling of the wind for company.
The wrath of winter descended early this year as if in collusion with the already deadly virus that has slowed the world, from warp speed to nearly standing still. Like Medusa, this witch of the cold north in her unrelenting fury, has all but turned us to stone. I sit here feeling the weight of my own body and its reluctance to move into another day. Unwillingly, I begin the day’s activities in slow motion, wondering why I cannot simply hibernate like a bear; wait it out until it is over – the winter, the pandemic, the darkness.
I know that this too, will pass – this waiting, this wondering, this uncertainty about a future that could easily slip away. I must remind myself that like the garden, which looks dead in winter, life only appears to have stopped. Somewhere beyond this solitude, in the deep recesses of my core, happier times are waiting to push forth from the surface of this temporary reality, to unfurl like the leaves of my prized perennials. I remind myself that spring will come. Spring will come.
