“Teach me the power of the dark” – came to me in a dream. The
dark is where we live until the light comes. In the dark our hearts are
breaking. Our soul is wounded; a black hole in the heart, a dark spell is cast;
it holds fast, and we slide into the dark night of the soul. This is the power
of the dark.
In the beginning, we are told, humans became the fire bearers;
in every home in the world is a place where the fire is kept: a hearth, the
heart of the home. For every hearth there is a hearth keeper; in most
cultures it is the women who tend the fire, who are the hearth keepers. Tending
the fire, is a constant worry and a constant work. If the fire goes out, it
must be restarted, or food will not be ready for the table. If the fire dies
down children may freeze in their beds, If the fire wood runs out the family is
in peril. We gather around the fire to warm ourselves, to share food and
drink, to share stories and gain wisdom. Beyond the fire, lies the dark.
Advent is the time when the fire has gone out, and before it is
relit. For many of us, this Advent is more than a time to remember the power of
the dark, this year we are living it. We women of great heart, are
taking up the challenge. We are making friends, sharing stories; cooperating in
our natural way. We are creating
alliances with those we see every day. We heal wounds, we comfort those men and
women who come before us. We make common cause in our daily lives and learn
from each other. We are all sisters and brothers in an immense learning
community of women.
Each morning, we meet. We greet, face to face, on the street
as we walk our infants in strollers, at the market, or the well. And now
through the miracle of webs and clouds, we cross the miles, the oceans; the
vast spaces evaporate like the dew in the morning sun. We are heart to heart,
playing and working side by side, I in my village in the north; you in your village
in the south, or west, or east. We carry in our hands our magic boxes linking
our knowing in ways we might never have imagined.
I have always known you were there but you seemed so far
away. I imagined that you knew not that I cared whether you had clean water, or
a chicken to lay eggs, or gruel for your children. But I do care; I never
imagined that I could let you know.
We are 3 hundred million strong and we are mending our nets,
we are mending the fabric of soil beneath our feet. Can we share as women have
always shared, a cup of sugar, an extra blanket, a prayer, a song across the
miles? Can we, like the pulses of energy coursing through our bodies heal each
other as we heal our families? As we
live in these dark days, like our world, we refresh ourselves, resting,
replenishing our essential life force, by Grace. It is a time for healing, for
remembering who we are and what we are called to be. The light creeps in slowly
and the world awakens slowly quietly gently. Solstice is the beginning of the
time of gentle awakening. Christmas is the season in which we celebrate the
woman who brought Light into the darkness. Let us lean into the fire and into each
other with compassion, remembering the women who are the hearth keepers and
their ways of caring.