Sometimes a person’s heart breaks because there is not enough room for the love that wants to flow through it. The heart breaks. Fresh cracks become fissures and into the fissures pour a molten elixir of fire. This burning salve drops deep into a space called the Will and cools – and here, we decide to live. But from the shape of the curved rock walls around us, we know that we cannot live the same way we did before.

Form explodes into nothingness. Fear springs up but there is no cliff to leap from. The cliff is gone too, leaving fear to dissipate in the wind. We grasp to nothing. No walls, no fear, no one else, only silence.

Such is the season of darkness, one survived through death, transformation and back into life. It is not destiny, however. Roads do not all have to be mottled with hardship. Not all dark seasons are conducted like the forge.

I give you the Sun’s rays for your season of darkness. I give you the glowing cup, brimming with gold to remind you that there is warmth even when we are not looking for it. That the natural state of your life as a flesh and bone mammal is heat. Whatever you do, in dance or in hibernation, may you be comforted with this knowledge, which is as constant as your own beating heart.

Dance in love this winter, the dance of wonder or the dance of despair, a dance of confusion or a dance of joy, each dance inherently loved simply by the truth of your expressions. Watch your fingers move, the lines they draw, speaking that which you could not previously say.

Rest sure this winter. Curl into your caves with the ancient mothers and sleep your wonderful sleep. There is time for work and there is time for dreaming and in this season, when we listen, the Mysteries do sing.

There is a Sun for working and there is a Sun for lazy morning stretching. I give you the lazy morning kind. The kind where it’s okay to be alone for gentle thinking, playful thinking, curiosity. The lazy sun dissolves the urgency from life and assures us, smoothing down the bristles.

There is a candle rooted in all of us, a candle which cannot be blown out. It is a fact. We cannot get away from life. Life is relentlessly persistent. It refuses to be ignored. With every step we take, around us life teems. The girl in the cafe. The quiet winter trees, the screech of tires on the highway. There is someone in there. There is life. There is life.

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SUN

I draw this circle ‘round myself,
around myself,
around myself.

And from the center I send out light,
I send out light,
I send out light.

To east, to south, to west, to north
and four more in-between
I paint the rays in red and gold
for creatures seen, unseen.

I do not need to wander far
for all I need is here.
I am a seeker nevermore
and laud my treasures near.

by Tasara