The Light Returning – Midwinter Blessings

by Ruby Sara

Blessings, best beloveds, on this dark Midwinter’s Day!  The sun has made no appearance as yet here in the fiercely wild urban midwest.  The sky is the color of bone and snow fell heavy and wet all last night.  From the warmth of a northside coffeehouse I watched it sink and spiral through broad streets and under yellow lamplight.  And later, the intrepid spouse and I opened gifts by the light of beeswax candles and tree lights, and fell asleep listening to that great silent beast walk between brick and sound its haunted and hollow notes in the tall eaves of barren trees.  Mother Holle shook her sheets righteously out over the people, and the white bees flew.

Despite the gray, however, and the weight of cloudcover over the crown of each building and the silky breath of Mother Lake, it is Solstice Day, friends.

Somewhere, I feel in my heart’s keep, there is a field and a hill, blue as indigo dye and streaked with tree shadows a deeper blue still.  And the people are gathered, restless in the early freeze, shambling and stomping to keep warm.  The shiver of bells and the murmer of early voices cuts across the snow.  And then the hush, no movement, as though even the winter birds are holding their breath, and a fierce blade of light snaps over the hill, bringing with it the rush of breath, the trumpet’s cry, the winging of a thousand birds, a peal of bells and laughter…a great hue and cry ringing out over the field and up the hill, to meet the rising sun and lift it up towards a blue diamond sky.

The Return of the Beloved Sun!  Sol Invictus!  Io Evohe!  Halle halle!  Praise the Light!

There is a red-cheeked, freezing, breathless and nameless joy that lives in this day.  The riot of life in the midst of death – the crest of darkness receding, oh barely.  And singing.  There is a rising in the blood, and the Children of Earth mark the world’s turning in their bones, even as they may stand beneath gray skies and see the sun only as a ghost through cloud and fog and snow.

May you have a joyous and blessed Midwinter, friends and beloveds.  May the sun rise like a great gold coin over the fields of your heart.

Grok Earth.  Pray without ceasing.