The Longest night : December 21st 2022
Over the millennia, we have learned to gather together in the community to share resources, find protection, increase confidence, and hang on to courage. Especially at difficult and dangerous times, turning to one another for support, affirmation, and encouragement is as natural as instinct; we do it intuitively. Long before recorded time, the power of nature reigned supreme. It birthed us into being, nurtured and sustained us, and sent us reeling with its often catastrophic indifference. And as the sun slipped beneath the horizon in the winter sky, our bewilderment must have turned toward despair. Our attachment to light is primal. We need it. Indeed, we crave it. Our lives could not be nourished without it. And so, even when we can rationally understand the physics of a leaving and returning sun, we find within the cosmic cycles a metaphor for much within our lives. Join us on the eve of the Winter Solstice to retell the story of darkness pressing over light and light's ongoing triumph. We'll reflect on what has been and our complicity in its dark and brutal tale. And then, encouraged in the community, we'll move into the light and, in so doing, let darkness slip from our hearts