WINTER SOULSTICE

Is the tide of darkness slowing, is the light really returning?

My soul wanders today on a high mesa, focusing only on the winds of change outside.

Complex mountain weather patterns collide, a windstorm is sweeping the foothills.

It is hard, almost impossible to walk forward into gusts of 60 miles an hour.

My ears attempt to listen beyond the swirling cacophony,

Deep in the repeated, unexpected gusts, I discover a non-human power - to lean.

Off-balance, tilted and gnarly, resistant and determined,

Canted forward into all I do not know,

Or else risk being blown aside as the tumbleweed and leaf litter of time.

Nothing is ever simple or easy in the wild,

Yet today my spirit is enervated, invigorated,

Enlivened beyond words in this communal dance of wind and solitude.

Is this what happens when storms of darkness remain on collision course with light?

Is this the way to live in the middle of Now.

This moment of today, in that sweet spot of joy,

when I also fear being propelled backwards down the uphill slog so recently mastered?

My companion, a lone pine tree sings in shrill notes as she squats on the rocky face.

Unbroken over time, her many branched trunk embraces a multi-layered magpie nest

She invites me to climb up into her nest of silence while the waterless storm rages on.

While the drought prevails.

My arms grasp for connection.

I feel our joined branches shriek their decades-long song of defiance.

“We will stand. We will grow. We will not be moved from this place we call our own.”

Let me also speak to you about juvenile hawk who for a spellbound moment glides beside me.

Unmoving presence, holding his own pace.

Unflappable, going nowhere, but letting the force of the storm hold him up.

While across the valley, two mature raptors soar and dive, immense birds of prey

Possibly playing “I dare you” in the ferocity of the winds.

Yes, my feathered, winged friends, may I be more like you

in this demanding season as the darkness and light collide on every front.

A totally alive, embodied Being.

Daring daily to move playfully into the winds of change.

Forgiving myself, my people for the folly of our earth-bound rule.

Letting go of everything but the joy of flight itself.

Trusting the currents of Spirit to revel with us

on the free and fierce unraveling edge of darkness and light.

Carol Kortsch

12/22/2020 Winter Solstice