Friday, December 21, 2007

Meditation on Darkness

Our church has its annual Winter solstice service tonight. I am looking forward to it. It is always a moment of calm before the storm of activity that is our holiday. Three extended family celebrations, two family birthdays, and at least two celebrations with friends. Tonight I am participating in the service as I have in the past. (Some years, I just sit quietly and enjoy the service.) This year I am reading two meditations that I was asked to write for this service. This first one is a meditation on the darkness. I will upload the Welcome Sun meditation tomorrow. Happy Winter Solstice.

Where does color go in the dark?
The verdant splendor of spring grass.
The unabashed purple of a lilac summoning insects to her party.
The poetic hue of autumn’s harvest that can only be self-described as pumpkin orange.
And the blue of a sky that hovers near-kiss above treetops, themselves an ever-changing spectrum.
Meditation on a traffic light, the maples and oaks seem to say. . .
Before that light goes out, and we are left without guide,
Without god.

This is not a sudden power outage
But a subtlety that has caught even the most aware of us off guard.
We sit here in the dark, at the intersection of our lives.
Deprived of navigation
Waiting in fear.
Deceived into thinking we are alone.

We do not know that guide and god, color and light
Are hibernating in caves within us.
Our winter eyes are solstice blind.
Sightless but seeking, our other senses rebound.
We finally notice the heartbeat.
Its call will lead us inside
To commune with all we thought lost.

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