Below is a brief excerpt from Red-Robed Priestess. Maeve is back on Mona inside Bryn Celli Ddu with the druids. Copyright 2010 by Elizabeth Cunningham. All rights Reserved.
It was pitch dark inside. I moved carefully to avoid stepping on anyone, and found a place to sit nestled between warm bodies on all sides. If the chamber had been lit, I might have felt claustrophobic. Jesus’s tomb had been palatial compared to this. But as it was, all of us pressed together, it seemed like children playing a game in the dark. I am not the only one who felt that, for among that august body, with no one much under forty, there were quite a few giggles and even now and then a guffaw as we all got settled.
Then the archdruid’s voice rang out, calling the quarters and proclaiming at last:
“Here now is the center of world.”
Instead of his planted staff, the center was a stone standing in the middle of the chamber, a stone I sensed rather than saw. I felt us all quieting, deepening, taking on the qualities of the stone. The only sound was our breath, almost inaudible as we caught each other’s rhythm, so that soon we were breathing as if we were one body.
“We know the danger that is almost certainly coming to our shores,” the archdruid said at length. “There is no need to debate it. The question before us is how shall we face it? Let us listen for answers in the silence. In the holy darkness, let our inward sight be clear. When words come, let them be words of wisdom and power.”
The silence spread over us again: fallen leaves over the earth, snow over leaves, stars over stone. Time got lost in the darkness; the confines of space that held us close together dissolved. We were sitting inside the vast womb of night, waiting for words to be born.
(A debate follows, which Maeve resolves. I won’t include it here as I don’t want to give away the plot. Below is the conclusion of the scene at sunrise on Solstice.)
Eventually the sobs subsided and the silence settled again. We moved even closer to each other, arms wrapped around whoever sat in front of us, head resting against the breast of the one behind. The pounding in my head eased. It would be over soon. I had no doubt of my task. I knew exactly where I would stand. I think I dozed off then. We all did, till the sun, reborn, shot its first ray down the passage grave and we rubbed our eyes and rose, stiffly, again.
Showing posts with label solstice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label solstice. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Monday, December 21, 2009
The Glorious Mother of the Stars
Solstice News: My album MaevenSong is scheduled for delivery today! The first sung notes are: "This story begins in the night. There will be a dawn, I promise." The last: "You will rise with the sun!" You can preview MaevenSong at http://passionofmarymagdalen.com/ by clicking on the book covers and then the song links near the top of the page. You can download songs or the entire album at , http://www.digstation.com/ElizabethCunningham
The Glorious Mother of the Stars
The sun rises late at my house, because of a wooded hill to our east. At this time of year when it clears the crest of the hill it looks like a star fallen among the bare trees, a match about to set world ablaze. And I am reminded that the sun is a star; it is a fire, and all that we burn to warm ourselves and to give light comes from this star, our star, that the Celts saw as a mother:
Hail to thee, thou sun of the seasons,
As thou traversest the skies aloft;
Thy steps are strong on the wing of the heavens,
Thou art the glorious mother of the stars.*
And, not being so literal-minded that they had to stick to one gender, a god:
Glory to thee,
Thou glorious sun.
Glory to thee, thou sun,
Face of the God of life.*
The newborn sun is, of course, also associated with the Divine Child, perhaps especially in English poetic tradition with its ready-made connection between sun and son. Let us not forget the divine daughters, like Persphone, Inanna, among others, who journey to the underworld and then return bringing new life.
In my counseling practice, I often work with people who have deep wounds because they were in some way unmothered or unfathered. (Really, that describes most of us, no matter how well-meaning our parents might have been.) So I invite people to go to the Mother, to imagine her, whether they see her as Mary, Isis, Brigid, or someone who needs no name and may not take a human form. And if it is a good father you need, then look up at the sun see "the face of the God of Life" shining back.
The new solar year is also a good time to tend the divine child not just in ourselves but in the world--as the world. The divine child Jesus said that any service rendered to any one in need was rendered to him. So he tells us the divine is everywhere, hidden in the most threadbare humanity. What if we saw the earth itself as our divine child, to be nourished and cherished. As devoted parents, we might be willing to put the earth's needs first sometimes, to make some sacrifices that the earth might thrive.
Enough with the metaphors. the truth is we are the earth and the sun, the moon and the stars. We are the same substance, and so we resonate with the yearly round. We rise with the sun. We begin again. Happy Solstice!
** Both the above verses come from Carmina Gadelica, Hymns & Incantations collected in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland in the 19th Century by Alexander Carmichael. They are part of an oral tradition whose antiquity is hard to calculate. This work is now in public domain.
The Glorious Mother of the Stars
The sun rises late at my house, because of a wooded hill to our east. At this time of year when it clears the crest of the hill it looks like a star fallen among the bare trees, a match about to set world ablaze. And I am reminded that the sun is a star; it is a fire, and all that we burn to warm ourselves and to give light comes from this star, our star, that the Celts saw as a mother:
Hail to thee, thou sun of the seasons,
As thou traversest the skies aloft;
Thy steps are strong on the wing of the heavens,
Thou art the glorious mother of the stars.*
And, not being so literal-minded that they had to stick to one gender, a god:
Glory to thee,
Thou glorious sun.
Glory to thee, thou sun,
Face of the God of life.*
The newborn sun is, of course, also associated with the Divine Child, perhaps especially in English poetic tradition with its ready-made connection between sun and son. Let us not forget the divine daughters, like Persphone, Inanna, among others, who journey to the underworld and then return bringing new life.
In my counseling practice, I often work with people who have deep wounds because they were in some way unmothered or unfathered. (Really, that describes most of us, no matter how well-meaning our parents might have been.) So I invite people to go to the Mother, to imagine her, whether they see her as Mary, Isis, Brigid, or someone who needs no name and may not take a human form. And if it is a good father you need, then look up at the sun see "the face of the God of Life" shining back.
The new solar year is also a good time to tend the divine child not just in ourselves but in the world--as the world. The divine child Jesus said that any service rendered to any one in need was rendered to him. So he tells us the divine is everywhere, hidden in the most threadbare humanity. What if we saw the earth itself as our divine child, to be nourished and cherished. As devoted parents, we might be willing to put the earth's needs first sometimes, to make some sacrifices that the earth might thrive.
Enough with the metaphors. the truth is we are the earth and the sun, the moon and the stars. We are the same substance, and so we resonate with the yearly round. We rise with the sun. We begin again. Happy Solstice!
** Both the above verses come from Carmina Gadelica, Hymns & Incantations collected in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland in the 19th Century by Alexander Carmichael. They are part of an oral tradition whose antiquity is hard to calculate. This work is now in public domain.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Lights out: surrendering to the dark
Since Halloween, for the zealous, and since the day after Thanksgiving for just about everyone else, we've been turning on the lights. We've been beating back darkness, depression, fear, and gloom with commercial clamor and the added stress of determined holiday cheer.
What if we didn't? Yes, I know the traditions of this season have ancient roots and almost all cultures sufficiently north of the equator have held feasts and revels and called for the sun's return as or more vociferously than we do. I don't want to write a blog about old customs: good, modern customs: crass or compromised. No. I want to talk about the dark, our fear of it. I want to talk about the dark. Our hidden longing for it.
For ten years, I was a Quaker and continue to have great respect for The Religious Society of Friends. During that time I did sometimes feel oppressed by Friends frequent references to the Light, their metaphor of choice, the ocean of Light that covered the ocean of Darkness--darkness being the force that light invariably vanquished. Quakers are by no means the only people who make this ubiquitous equation. Who hasn't talked about "dark emotions" or used the expression "going over to the dark side." But consider:
The womb is dark; the earth where the seed gestates is dark; the ocean where all life began is dark; the night which gives us the map of the stars is dark; corn ripens in the dark. Nor is light always benign; there is the naked light bulb of interrogation, the too much light that withers crops, the light of a bomb exploding. When we equate darkness with evil and light with good, are we not, however unintentionally, implying that light-skinned people are superior to dark-skinned people? Could we find another metaphor? Or use this one differently?
I am now an interfaith minister and a pagan with Christian roots. The Church's liturgical year and the pagan year, indeed the liturgial year in most religions are not so different. All of them had their origins in observing and aligning with the journeys of the sun and the moon, the changing seasons. For the past seven years I have also been studying tai chi, whose symbol is the dark and the light in dynamic balance, each one holding the seed of the other.
In the Northern hemisphere it's the nadir of the dark time. Why not surrender to the dark? I like holiday lights as well as anyone, because they are tiny in night's vastness, light seeds. All I am saying is: sometimes just let the dark be dark, let the night be silent. Turn out all the lights and sit in the dark. Inside darkness. Take a bath in the dark. Turn out the outside lights and look at the stars. Parties can be fun. But stay in sometimes. In the dark. Inside the restorative, generative dark.
What if we didn't? Yes, I know the traditions of this season have ancient roots and almost all cultures sufficiently north of the equator have held feasts and revels and called for the sun's return as or more vociferously than we do. I don't want to write a blog about old customs: good, modern customs: crass or compromised. No. I want to talk about the dark, our fear of it. I want to talk about the dark. Our hidden longing for it.
For ten years, I was a Quaker and continue to have great respect for The Religious Society of Friends. During that time I did sometimes feel oppressed by Friends frequent references to the Light, their metaphor of choice, the ocean of Light that covered the ocean of Darkness--darkness being the force that light invariably vanquished. Quakers are by no means the only people who make this ubiquitous equation. Who hasn't talked about "dark emotions" or used the expression "going over to the dark side." But consider:
The womb is dark; the earth where the seed gestates is dark; the ocean where all life began is dark; the night which gives us the map of the stars is dark; corn ripens in the dark. Nor is light always benign; there is the naked light bulb of interrogation, the too much light that withers crops, the light of a bomb exploding. When we equate darkness with evil and light with good, are we not, however unintentionally, implying that light-skinned people are superior to dark-skinned people? Could we find another metaphor? Or use this one differently?
I am now an interfaith minister and a pagan with Christian roots. The Church's liturgical year and the pagan year, indeed the liturgial year in most religions are not so different. All of them had their origins in observing and aligning with the journeys of the sun and the moon, the changing seasons. For the past seven years I have also been studying tai chi, whose symbol is the dark and the light in dynamic balance, each one holding the seed of the other.
In the Northern hemisphere it's the nadir of the dark time. Why not surrender to the dark? I like holiday lights as well as anyone, because they are tiny in night's vastness, light seeds. All I am saying is: sometimes just let the dark be dark, let the night be silent. Turn out all the lights and sit in the dark. Inside darkness. Take a bath in the dark. Turn out the outside lights and look at the stars. Parties can be fun. But stay in sometimes. In the dark. Inside the restorative, generative dark.
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