Today is the Winter Solstice i.e. the shortest day and longest night of the year. This is the first day of winter which used to make me really unhappy since I don't like the cold. I'm working on appreciating the seasons, especially winter, this year because they are part of Mother Earth's cycle which a true goddess must appreciate and ultimately revere. Though it means we will be facing at least 3 months of short days and long nights of cold weather (depending on where you are), it also marks the return of the sun. After the solstice, days are getting longer and we are getting more sunlight to usher in a new period of growth, known as the spring.
Many spiritual traditions honor the solstice as a time to put forth wishes and intentions for the year. Winter is a time of death, out with the old. But it also represents the birth of the new, when the Sun is reborn. The idea is that your dreams, intentions, desires, hopes can grow with the Sun to bloom in the Spring and live through the next cycle. It's the same concept of a New Year's resolution but this is Mother Earth's new year and you're working with her energy to make your dreams a reality, rather than Dick Clark (does he still even host that? Big up to another Mt. Vernon High School grad).
I think it's also a time to let some things die. Maybe old habits, patterns, ways of thinking, relationships, connections. Old doesn't necessarily signify length of time but things that are stagnant and rotting, cluttering up your energy and path to rebirth. I've been feeling this death inside, but I'm positively realizing that I must be in tune with my Mother and my Creator.
As day turns into night, I'm going to light some candles and hold my own funeral. It is not morbid, but parts of me are rotting and I feel the dead weight. I am happy to die.
I'm also going to celebrate my birthday. I am being reborn into a truer self than the last. There are realities to face and parts of my being that have been waiting to wake up with the Sun.
I wrote the following on the train a couple of days ago from a part of me that is dying a slow, prolonged, staggering, dramatic death. Perhaps it's my eulogy.
Where is my freedom?
if i let my soul be free
my pockets will be empty
the 4 walls close in tighter around me
time is not mine
only parsed out in hours assigned to arbitrary dollar amounts
is that my worth?
this structure feels like armor
though it doesn't protect me
it inhibits my movement
and keeps me stiff
or maybe it's a girdle
which explains why i can't breathe
this Groundhog Day i live
trying to rectify yesterday's mistakes
and do better than before
but I wake up
and tomorrow is the same as yesterday
my small victories toward conformity
make me feel more defiant
offering too much of myself
deflecting from work on me
more stunted growth
throwing boomerangs at society's fortress
bang on walls to be let out
an outburst in a vacuum
i get smacked by my own ammunition
look up in the clouds
360 degrees of dense fog
every direction could be my path
so i take one step at a time
deeper into the abyss
of an enforced life
that doesn't fit
the goddess inside screams through my lungs
pounds on my chest
punches me in the gut
until I listen to her pleas
a language I can't decipher
but can feel
her whispers in my ear
sing songs of liberty...
"it's all in your mind"
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