Solstice thoughts on the longest night.
As we enter the longest night of the year, I find my mind turning to changes that the past year has brought in myself and my life over the last year with gratitude to the Divine and determination to spend another year in devotion to the Great Work.
I also look to the world that we share and the events of the past year with a broken and contrite heart. Our world is torn with war and conflict, anger and shame, and in the darkness it’s easy to feel that the night will go on forever, that the darkness will finally win. In these moments, we turn inward towards our own pain and look outward at the pain of others and it is easy to despair, to be brought to a moment of crisis, even to a momentary loss of faith.
But this is not the lesson the Divine has built into the very fabric of our reality. Instead we see a cycle, a “wheel of the year”, where spring follows winter and day follows night. A place and a time for pain, doubt, and fear, yes…but also a place and a time for the reminder of hope and the renewal of life.
Yes, someday this wheel will stop turning. The story will end. The gods will put the chairs up on the tables, turn out the lights, and the party will finally be over. Someday the night will never end and spring will never come.
But tonight is not that night. Tonight we celebrate the longest night by being reminded that the dawn will come. Tonight we come through the crucible and into the return of the Sun, the blessed source of light and warmth and life. Tonight we—or at least some of us—will sit the vigil, and we will welcome back the light.
So remember, the night is long and the path is dark, but in the end the dawn will come.