I have a habit of changing out the seasonal decor in my home immediately after a holiday has passed with the exception of Christmas. The Halloween decor gets put away on November 1st and the fall decor the Friday after Thanksgiving. The long weekend after Thanksgiving is my time to put out the Christian decorations and take my time creating a cozy cabin-like feel to survive the chill of winter.
But this year, as I stared at the calendar hanging behind my computer, I noticed All Saints Day and All Souls Day approaching and I thought the skeleton hands on my mantle could linger a bit longer. It seems I have become more comfortable with the idea of death. It’s not just mirrored in my slowness to put away the plastic skulls probably made in China but in my understanding death isn’t just the moment breath leaves our body. The loss and grief I’ve experienced while still breathing tells me this is so.
My participation in the Wild Church movement this past year has also drawn my attention to the life cycles of Earth. I find myself mourning the loss of the giant Willow tree in my neighborhood that held the perfect swing chopped down to make room for development. I think about the long past children who enjoyed the wind on their faces under a canopy of green. When childlessness started to become a reality a few Christmases ago, I remember grabbing my husband’s warm hand and saying “It’s just us”. The death of trees, dreams, and loved ones has me looking at holidays differently these days. As the days grow darker, my heart lingers on All Souls Day. I am seeing the gifts darkness has gifts to offer, and how I’ll miss them if I rush onto the next thing.
As I have grown to love a more quiet and contemplative faith, I find myself in darkness more and neglecting my prayer journal. With my eyes closed, I breathe in the moment, fighting off the resistance to move on to the next. Once I’ve settled my busy mind, the darkness is surprisingly comforting. The stillness of nothingness requires very little but a descent into surrender. Learning to embrace the moment as it is, is a death in itself when I desire for it to be something else. But the gifts are found there, below my ego, below my striving and expectations to then find an Eternal Spring waiting for me. This steady flow of life-giving Water is what I find when I finally relinquish my rights to live as I want to.
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This will be the second year in a row that I feel a deep resistance towards the coming Advent season. For the first time, I confessed to a friend over pastries and decaf coffee, that I don’t like Advent. The confession felt strange on my tongue as memories flashed across my mind of the joy I once held for Advent. The wave of energy I would experience the day after Thanksgiving to pull out the Christmas totes buried deep in the shed now feels barely a trickle. I have attempted to diagnose this Scrooge-like posture, almost waiting for the skeleton hands on my mantle to point their bony fingers at me and reveal my bitter heart. But the resistance remains unnamed.
Last year, when this feeling arrived, it felt easy to name it grief. It was the year when our hopes of growing our family came to an end but it does not feel right to call this resistance grief anymore. It’s not that grief isn’t still present but because it has given birth to something new in me. Perhaps it is an acceptance that death is always present and that it is not something to be feared but to be welcomed. I picture the many aunts and uncles who will enter cheery homes this season with arms full of presents as dark shadows lurk behind them. We want to shut the door quickly and not give the shadows a chance to enter but death is as close as life. The veil is indeed thin and this blurring of darkness and light reveals they can coexist.
Perhaps my resistance is that I no longer desire to resist the darkness. Advent happens during the darkest season of the year and today we will turn our clocks back to gain an hour only to lose the light later. The month of December seems to flip the bird to the darkness as we clutter our homes and streets with lights upon lights. Our feeble attempt to push back the darkness and close our homes to the shadows takes up whatever energy we can muster. But what if we welcomed the darkness? What if we laid down our weapons of holiday cheer and put out cookies for the shadows? Because they are present regardless of how much online shopping we do. Why not offer darkness a seat at the table?
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The other morning I was jarred into a moment of awe. It stopped me from making my coffee and sent me shivering onto the back porch, snuggling my dog. The bright pink of the sunrise was so elaborate and colorful, that I had to pause all other tasks and take in the morning sky. The deep pink began at the horizon and spread its waves of color thinly upward, growing lighter and lighter to meet the fading stars. An exquisite co-mingling of darkness and light. I witnessed the mutual giving way to one another. The darkness was not fighting back nor did the light need to force its way. They gave in to one another. As morning dawned, darkness gladly stepped aside and the light will soon return the favor in the evening. Beauty breaks forth when both can exist together. A reminder that we cannot have one without the other. The shadows enter and the light sparkles. Both together, both with gifts to offer.
The gifts of the light are easy to name. I saw and tasted those gifts in summer with the small harvest from our garden and the many delicious moments around the grill. The warmth on my face and poolside drinks with a really good book. But what are the gifts of darkness? They are hard to name because they are hidden deep within us and only stillness can draw them out. These gifts are the inner workings of a human soul; the stewing and turning of things seen in the light that become buried seeds in the dark. It is those things that are impossible to name that become who we are. These gifts of darkness offer us a dance with death not out of fear but out of necessity. We cannot remain as we are. The darkness knows this and gently invites us to attend a thousand funerals, teaching us to join the mutual giving way of light to dark, dark to light. Only then can we truly see the exquisite beauty of both.
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Even with my current state of resistance, I will still drag the Christmas decor from the dark corners of the shed and do my best to create a cozy space to nestle in for the winter. But I won’t fight the darkness by ramping up the cheer or buying last-minute Christmas lights at Rite Aid (true story). I will learn to hold hands with the dark. I will cease my striving and be still enough for the gifts to reveal themselves. Though the gift may be as simple as tears, I will welcome them as I would a cup of hot cider. Because tears belong to this season as much as the scented candles do.
May we make space for the darkness to come and know it will gladly step aside when the light returns.
Much love,
Mmm, such good thoughts on this cozy night! Especially as the holidays near, it's so important to remind people that we're not supposed to force happy all holiday season, we're allowed to feel those dark spaces too. I also couldn't help but think as I read this about the modern witchcraft (especially the Reclaiming tradition) emphasis on "shadow work".
One more, for the darkness: https://mbird.com/poetry/wh-auden-for-time-being-advent-portion/