Winter Solstice: a Meditation on Darkness

The longest night of the year is here. The darkest time in the Northern Hemisphere.

Before we begin the conversation about the return of light after this point in time, here is an invitation. It is an invitation to all of us, myself included, to take a pause; and to savor the warmth and the mystery of darkness. An invitation to sit quietly, maybe with a lone candle in the room, or just a shaft of moonlight entering through the window… and to breathe into the dark place.

Winter solstice is the time of light from the candle, the moon, or the fireplace. The kind of light that forms mysterious shapes and forms on the walls. That gives rise to fantasy, to stories that for the most part, live outside our realm of perception.

It is time we learn to honor Darkness, and the mysteries she alone holds. Darkness is the home of the unmanifest. Of the deep unconscious. Of mystery. It is the place that holds and nurtures all the opposite polarities to those that we are consciously aware of, and those we identify as “me” and “mine.” This dark place holds not only our fear, our anger, our shame and our sorrow, it also holds our greatest aspirations and our highest imaginings of what life could be! If we prefer psychological language, then we may call this place the repository of our “shadow.”

The pregnant Virgin Mary, with a dragon at her feet; representing a stage in the alchemical process. Colour painting after etching, 1772/3. Source: Wellcome Collections.

And as we develop the muscles we need to stay with the darkness, without rushing to turn on the overhead neon lights, may we trust that there will always be that glimmer of light - that spark, that twinkle - that lives in the womb of Darkness herself. The spark that some call “consciousness,” while others call “God.” The spark that allows us to see, to notice, to discern.

This time of the year is an invitation to allow this light to be just a tiny spark, a faint glimmer. For it to show us just enough to orient us, while leaving a lot of space where mystery may dwell. Because let’s face it... That sparkle, that twinkle - which lives in the womb of Darkness - is impossible to see if the field is awash with high-wattage illumination of rational and analytical thinking, or of a whole bunch of rules and “shoulds!”

But if, and when, we are able to create a space that the Irish poet, John O’Donohue, described as one that has “a hospitality for the shadow,” we offer a dwelling place to Mystery. And this invitation to Mystery inexorably ushers in her two sisters: Magic (symbolized by the story of the “divine birth”) and Medicine (the “divine child” growing up teach the gospel of universal love).

I posit that this barely-lit space of Darkness is a prerequisite for ushering in the Eternal Tryptic - Mystery, Magic and Medicine!

So, on this winter solstice, let us pause. Let us remember that this year has already been unlike any other year in our lifetime. An year where everything, as we knew it, has already been turned on its head!

As we sit in this darkness of unknowing - which is so much a source of fear in our culture, what if this time, we do not resist it, but in fact welcome its wisdom in - the wisdom that is knocking at our door?

~~~

Above, I have offered the symbol of “divine birth” as an image for what is possible at this time. Below, I offer another. This time, from my birthland, India.

So, here is an image of the two “dark gods” of India. The Goddess with the sword, and the God with the flute. Yes, I am speaking about Kali and Krishna.

In this container of darkness, once again, all social convention, and the system of morality it supports, are thrown out the window!

Kali standing triumphantly over Shiva. Chromolithograph. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Here, in this “other space", it is the Mother Goddess who goes to the battlefield with an unsheathed sword to cut off the heads of the demons, and to lick their blood clean from the battlefield. Unfortunately, many an “orientalist scholar” has described Kali as “savage” and “bloodthirsty.” But, seen as a symbol of alchemical transmutation (similar to Mary above), Kali invites us to “murder” our own inner “demons,” thus catalyzing the end of an age. Only the death of an age allows a new cycle to begin. Thus, her name - Kali - denotes both Blackness and Time. Embodied in a feminine form, she exudes “warrior" energy, which our culture of daylight consciousness designates as "masculine.”

Radha and Krishna. Gouache drawing. Source: Wellcome Collection.

In a similar vein, the male god Krishna, in this telling, is the sensitive musician, playing his flute to entice and draw near… not just his beloved Radha (who just happens to be a married woman!), but all the milkmaids who fall under the spell of his divine music. Drawn like bees to honey, like moths to the flame, they come. He is the erotic one - stealing and hiding the clothes of the milkmaids as they enter the river naked, to bathe. He is the butter-thief; stealing and eating the butter that supports the livelihood of his foster family. He’s the rule-breaking male God, who emanates the distinctly “feminine" energy of love, enticement and swooning. He invites each one of us to hear the music of his flute, to come running, to let all our “clothing” of social conventions fall away, and to fall madly in love with divine sweetness and generativity!

May this winter solstice bring to each of us the blessings of the “underworld.” May this include the blessings of the Dark Goddess - symbolized by her unsheathed sword of right action, and that of the Dark God - symbolized by his erotic music, inviting us to dance with abandon under the stars, and to flaunt all man-made categories of morality and propriety.

May we have the courage to live on this wild edge of darkness, even if only briefly!