Resisting the Light

Refusing to be forced

Earlier this week, I was enjoying the stillness of a morning where a blanket of mist covered the fields as I walked my dog. Frost formed delicate patterns on the hedgerows, and frozen cobwebs hung like tiny crystal sculptures between blades of grass. The stillness was interrupted by another dog walker walking briskly by. He smiled as he pulled his collar up round his ears. “Miserable day…never mind, spring won’t be long.” 
It's just as well that he kept walking, it meant that he didn’t see the disgruntled scowl appear on my face in response to his cheery comment. 
 
 I have been feeling disgruntled for a while. The cacophony of ‘noise’ coming from the various screens that seem to be an indispensable part of my western life, jars on my nervous system. It started as soon as the winter solstice had passed. People commenting brightly that the light nights were on the way. As soon as the shops opened after Christmas, hot cross buns and Easter goods were on the shelves and t.v ads for summer holidays began to appear. My social  media feed told me that I needed to leave the old and embrace the new, that my year can be bigger and better than ever before, that I can get more for less if I grab it now and most pernicious, that I need to step into the new me, as if somehow the old me was wanting or deficient and had failed to live up to what was expected.

 

It's not that I don’t love the spring.
I do.
The gradual soft greening of the land, the whispers of new beginnings held in velvet clad buds and soft catkins adorning otherwise barren trees, fill my heart with a sense of hope and quiet joy. Neither am I opposed to finding new ways of being. I know that is vital if I, we, are to navigate what the world is going through.

But neither spring or personal transformation are things that happen suddenly.

Joyce Rupp’s evocative poem ‘The Cloak of Winter’ is a favourite. It speaks to this deep need I have, to resist being thrust into the light too quickly.

This year I do not want
the dark to leave me.
I need its wrap
of silent stillness,
its cloak
of long lasting embrace.
Too much light
has pulled me away
from the chamber
of gestation.
Let the dawns
come late,
let the sunsets
arrive early,
let the evenings
extend themselves
while I lean into
the abyss of my being.
Let me lie in the cave
of my soul,
for too much light
blinds me,
steals the source
of revelation.
Let me seek solace
in the empty places
of winter’s passage,
those vast dark nights
that never fail to shelter me.

 I find this year, that I need the ‘wrap of its silent stillness’ more than ever. As I look around it is as if many are oblivious to the state of our planet or the powerful and destructive energies that are at work all around us. There is pressure from those who are aware, to do more, protest and organise. Angry outpourings meant to stir us to action serve only to ignite my own sense of rage and helplessness and leave me feeling depleted. Those taking a more spiritual approach offer more ways to manifest  the coming  so called Golden Age, more meditation, more prayer, another personal growth workshop or spiritual retreat to put us in touch with our own magnificence or power.

But I don’t have the energy.

In the midst of all this overwhelm and general disgruntledness, I found a source of wisdom and comfort, in a very unexpected place. A church feast day.


Growing up, the churches I attended took down their Christmas decorations after Epiphany, with homes following suit. A superstition grew up around the tradition, that bad luck would ensue if decorations were left up longer and most people have removed them by January 6th, if not before. But in medieval times, decorations stayed up until February 2nd and the feast of Candlemass. This feast day celebrates the presentation of Jesus at the Temple.  It also commemorates the purification of Mary. In moving away from institutional religion, I had long ago disregarded this feast, as I found the idea that a woman is somehow unclean after childbirth (or at any other time) deeply offensive and viewed it as an example of the misogyny rampant in the Judeo/Christian religions. 

And yet……
and yet… 
beneath all the misogyny I find some wisdom speaking to my heart, wisdom that touches all the overwhelm swamping me.   Prior to the presentation in the temple, Mary, or to use her real name, Maryam, would have had forty days apart from normal life. A time of rest when her body could heal and she could adjust to her new reality. This ly-ing in or confinement, as it was known in the UK, is still practiced in many cultures but fell out of favour in the west. We no longer have families nearby available to step in and take over the responsibilities for running the home. Women are encouraged to see childbirth as a ‘natural’ event, which of course it is. But with that comes an assumption that because it is natural, birth is something that can be got over quickly. Women are congratulated for getting rid of their baby weight and showing images of their perfectly tidy home and blissful relationship with their new baby on Instagram. 

What on earth has this got to do with me you might wonder, an older woman long past child rearing age. Why does it resonate so deeply? 

At Candlemas we see a young mother who has not returned to society straight after the birth. It has been a gradual process. Just as the lengthening of days is a gradual process. 
I have decided that, as we move into this year, when so many changes are taking place at such speed, I am going to continue my own ‘ly-ing in’.  I will take time to nurture my body and let it heal from the effort of gestating the new. This new part of me that will be going out into the world. The new part that, like any child, will look at the world with fresh eyes,  find wonder and beauty in the small things, learn to create and play. That might sound frivolous in the face of all that is going on. As I write this, wildfires are ravaging California, destroying thousands of homes of human and non-human alike. Wars rage in Ukraine, Gaza and many other places, poverty is increasing for millions and the most powerful nation on earth recently made a decision that will affect millions of women, LGBQT, chronically ill and poor people in ways we cannot begin to imagine, never mind the effect it will have on this planet we call home.
I have to birth new ways of being that will help me deal with all this. I have to be curious about why it is happening, learn to imagine myself into the shoes of those who think so differently to me. 
In the face of this, it is good to realise that the confinement period was not just for the sake of the mother. It was to give the baby opportunity to adjust to its new world and to find a sense of safety in the mother, a sense that would enable the baby to engage with all that they would encounter, in a healthy way. 
Curiosity, creativity and compassion need to be nurtured and given time and space if they are to develop and grow. They can’t be forced.
That’s why, in an old cottage in Shropshire you will find a Christmas tree, its lights still twinkling  until February 2nd. A reminder that the light is indeed coming….but slowly.