Image by Thalia Took at the A-Muse-ing Grace Gallery
On December 21st, we will once again celebrate Yule, the Winter Solstice.
Every year, in the heart of the longest night, we wait for the Child of Light. We open ourselves to the miracle. We gather in faith and truth and love, and we remember.
And every year, this is my guiding card: The Star.
We have been here before and will be here again. Such is the way of our universe—nothing is lost and everything returns. And while we might have puzzled out a few equations in the scientific clockwork of it all, the unfolding whole remains a mystery.
The Star is a big card, as big as hope, because at its heart, it's a card of movement. But not celestial movement. Your movement. Which means it's a matter of perspective. For no matter how much the stars seem to move, it's really Earth that's moving.
I feel these turnings, these vast ancient circles within circles. From my tiny finite standing place, the moon wanes, the sun waxes, and the stars move across the sky in their precise predictable courses.
These are illusions, of course, human perspectives that mark me as part of the cycle and not separate from it. For the moon does not grow or shrink, the sun blazes as steady now as it did at the height of summer, and the constellations do not wheel and turn above me.
It is Earth that tilts and whirls, the same earth that feels so steady beneath me. Another illusion, this steadiness, for the Earth and I (and you) are plummeting through space at 66,000 miles an hour. The stars are at the tumbling edge of the expanding universe, and as I gaze at the indigo horizon on this longest of nights, I offer thanksgiving, a wordless circle of gratitude that extends in rings around me.
This Winter Solstice, may gratitude be a force for love in your world, and in all worlds. May your days be filled with wonder and your nights with enough light to guide you home.
Blessed be, y'all. See you in 2023!