Let those lights stay on...

Dear Reader:

Greetings from the Winter Solstice!   The sun is now at its greatest distance from the celestial equator, y'all.   Longest night of the year.   I'll admit that I've been a bit heavy-handed in my "let's embrace the darkness" rhetoric in recent posts, but, as a wise friend once said to me - it's nobody's business whether the things you write are about you trying to convince yourself to feel a certain way or about how you actually feel at that moment.  Nobody's business but your own.  So true.  So true.   And, sometimes, I think you can write or play or sing or paint your way into a better or a different place.  That seems a positive thing, for the most part.  So, anyway, let the overwrought analogies for darkness and winter continue!  If the sun cannot shine on my face, I sure as heck can try to turn the cold and dark into something helpful.   Ha.  

I do want to share a wondrous thing this evening with you, dear reader.   Tomorrow is completely without encumbrance.   No meetings, no concerts, no church services, no errands, no school buses to get to, no people to visit, no shopping to complete.   NOTHING.   This is, in fact, the first day since - oh, I don't know - SEPTEMBER - that the kids and I have been able to do whatever we want, whenever we want.   Even during the Thanksgiving break at the beach, there were still responsibilities, plans, etc.   I could not be more pleased.   After a marathon of seasonal keyboard action this morning (my daughter asked me how many notes I pressed down on the piano today - a gazillion, honey) and a marathon of kids' Christmas pageant rehearsal and performance tonight, I am spent.   I did manage to attend a restorative yoga class this afternoon.   In fact, I went to ridiculous lengths to get a babysitter for this event.    I became almost quixotically obsessed with attending this class.   At one point,  I was willing to pay for a babysitter to drive from an hour away (gas money) and spend two hours with my kids so I could do this.   That ended up to be not necessary, but I will tell you that I would have happily shelled out the $50 ($40 for gas/babysitting and $10 for the class) to make this happen.    There are really no words to express how much comfort restorative yoga gives me.   It's amazing to me that I had no knowledge of this type of yoga (even though I've gone to yoga classes on and off for 10 years) until recent months.    Now, I have a guide for my home practice:

There's just something about the support that I feel from the bolster on these poses and the time that I take with each pose that makes me feel so calm and peaceful and ready to be kind to myself.   It is indescribably lovely to wrap my arms around that bolster in supported child's pose or drape myself over the bolster on my back in supported fish pose while I can feel the space (both physical and metaphorical) opening up in my chest. And, the longer that I stay in these poses, the more I can feel where I have difficulty letting go of my need to control myself, my mind, my body, my emotions.  For whatever reason, I have needed this kind of practice for a long time.   I am ready for it to deepen.

Along those same lines, I recently purchased this little gem:

Let me share a couple of lines from this lovely little book which I will be carrying around with me in my purse like one of those pocket New Testaments:

"If we feel empty, we don't need to go to the refrigerator to take things out to eat.  When you eat like that it's because there is a feeling of emptiness, loneliness, or depression inside.  The moments of our daily lives can be filled with joy and meaningful activities.  Our community includes our family and friends and our connection to other living beings.  There are there to help us get out of these feelings...If we don't attempt to look deeply to understand our craving, it will grow.  When we take the time to take care of our emotions with mindfulness and compassion, then we can just eat.  We can enjoy our food without craving and develop a healthy and positive relationship to eating."

So, I think some new seeds are being watered in my mind these dark winter days/nights.   My children can see me trying to understand my own emotional life, and I think that is a good thing.    I hope that I can model for them a process by which a person can grow through all sort of experiences and emotions and thoughts.  

In honor of the solstice and the upcoming Holiday, here is (again) my favorite, favorite Christmas poem:

When everyone had gone
I sat in the library
With the small silent tree,
She and I alone.
How softly she shone!

And for the first time then
For the first time this year,
I felt reborn again,
I knew love's presence near.

Love distant, love detached
And strangely without weight,
Was with me in the night
When everyone had gone
And the garland of pure light
Stayed on, stayed on.

---May Sarton

I love the simplicity of this poem.  I love that the tree is female.   I love the gentle and subtle repetition of certain elements.  And that line  - "And strangely without weight..."   Just yes.  Isn't that an incredibly powerful idea?   Love without weight.   Love without responsibility or duty or oppression.   Isn't that what we all struggle for in our relationships, whatever they may be?   A love that is light and diffuse and does not press in, uncomfortably, on one's heart or thoughts?   And, don't we, really, sometimes have fleeting moments when we achieve that?   Moments out of time when we can just smile upon those we love and not require anything more of them or ourselves.   Brief, brief moments.  I think it might be a good thing to cultivate more of those moments.  It's probably impossible to sustain "love without weight" for any length of time, but perhaps that's not the point?   Maybe just knowing that it's possible now and again to feel such lightness is enough?   And, probably most radical of all (at least for me!) - what if we loved ourselves with such lightness?   Oh, what a relief that would be.   Honestly, I think that's the feeling I get on a good day in restorative yoga.

I hope you, dear reader, can feel love's presence near you this holiday season.   Sometimes, it's harder to feel that at this time of year.   I'll leave you with my tree and my garland of pure light that will stay on, stay on.   At least until I lay my head down to sleep tonight.  :)

Thanks for reading!