Wisdom for the 12 Days of Christmas

Wisdom For the 12 Days of Christmas

Lady Wisdom

As such, she was known to alchemists as Sapientia,

Lady Wisdom, Lady Nature, Alkimia.

We celebrate the 12 Days of Christmas as a time between times. It is the time when the old year dies and everything returns to chaos, so that new birth is possible.

We also assign astrological signs to each day, beginning with the evening and the following day counting as one day. So Christmas night's dream is an Aries dream and the day after was the Aries day. Last night's dream (12/26) is Taurus, and so is today etc. 

 

If you don't remember your dreams, watch what goes on everyday. All is sacred, especially during this time between times. 

 

We invoke Wisdom for these 12 days. 

 

Lady Wisdom is so needed at this time in the world. So She comes to bestow her wise gifts on us. Please take the time to recognize them and honor them.

Lady Wisdom Speaks: A Christmas Blessing (12/25/17)

Let your hearts be at peace.
You are Loved.
So why hold back your Love?
Give it freely to your world.
Shower those shut-down hearts
With the glorious Light of your Love.
IT will Seep into their bones like smoke.
Stretch your Heart Wide Open
Never be ashamed to Love.

The 1^st Day of Christmas: Aries: Who am I?  (12/26/17) 

The Wisdom of Aries is that we have to incarnate with a special purpose.  Who am I? is the question we have to ask.  So let's look first at the cosmic laws that govern our incarnation.  This is where we find Wisdom.

Who is Lady Wisdom? She is the Sophia, partner of the Christ – his equal and balance. She is the Light of Nature, the Cosmic Laws that create our universe. She is the Code.

“For in her is the spirit of understanding; . . . loving that which is good, quick, beneficent, gentle, kind, steadfast, assured, secure, . . . intelligible, pure, subtle: for Wisdom is more active than all active things;. . . For she is the brightness of eternal light, and the unspotted mirror of God’s majesty, and the image of his goodness. . . . For she is more beautiful than the Sun, and above all the order of the stars: being compared with the light, she is found before it. For after this cometh night, but no evil can overcome Wisdom.” Wisdom 7:22-30

The 2^nd Day of Christmas: Taurus: What are my values? (12/27/17)

The Wisdom of Taurus is that Love and Beauty are gifts that create Life here on Earth.
If Lady Wisdom is the Light of Nature (cosmic laws) in Aries, She manifests here on Earth as Taurus’ most cherished value – Love.  Love of the Earth and of Life. She comes to us from the ancient Greeks as Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love (of all kinds), Sexuality (of all kinds), Wisdom (body/soul/spirit), Connection, Independence, Peace, the Arts. 

 

Love is the Water of Life.

And a Lover is a Soul of Fire.

The Universe turns differently

When Fire Loves Water.

                                           Rumi

Driven by the force of Love the fragments of the world seek each other that the world may come into Being.

                                          Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Do not be angry with beauty

because it is beautiful. . .

Every earthly Venus,

like the first Venus of Heaven,

Is a dark birth

which emerges out of the endless sea.

                                                Friedrich von Schiller

The 3^rd Day of Christmas: Gemini: How Do You Experience the World?

The Wisdom of Gemini is to understand life we have to experience life.We experience the world through our Taurus values and beliefs. With Gemini, anything goes because experience is how we organize our world, how we gain knowledge. There’s no right or wrong – it’s just how we experience it. So how do we find Wisdom in those experiences? Because knowledge and Wisdom are different.

“The only source of knowledge is experience.”

                                                                       Albert Einstein

“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.”

                                                                       Confucius

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.”

                                                                       Albert Einstein

“Wisdom preacheth abroad; she uttereth her voice in the streets: At the head of multitudes she crieth out, in the entrance of the gates of the city she uttereth her words, saying: Oh children, how long will ye love childishness?”

                                                                      Proverbs 1:20-22

The 4^th Day of Christmas: Cancer: What do I need to thrive?

The Wisdom of Cancer is that our emotional intelligence can tell us what is important to us.   Now that we’ve seen the world and experienced its many facets, what do we really want out of life? What is it that will make us thrive? It’s our emotional body that tells us what it is, not our logical mind. 

 

We are looking for the Pearl of Great Price, our soul’s desire.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.

— Matthew 13:45-46

The Pearl of Great Price is found by diligent seeking.

Have you ever wondered why the Pearl so often symbolizes the very kindling of light in the darkness of which Jung speaks? Not only does the Pearl represent the number 30 but it also images the brilliant gem that can only become so by beginning in grit and darkness, and being fished from the depths.

The 5^th Day of Christmas: Leo: What can I create?

The Wisdom of Leo is that we are here to co-create the world.  Once we get in touch with our emotional intelligence about what we want in life, we create it in the world. That’s our Leo energy. Leo wants us to express ourselves through play, through the imagination, through love, through our children – both literal children and our creative children. Don’t let fear keep you from doing what you feel, creating what you envision, and sharing what you make.

Trust that the Universe knows what it’s doing when it chooses you to channel its creativity and vision.

                                          Cathy Pagano

Eye of the Unconscious

Lady Wisdom speaks to us through the Imagination, which is playful and symbolic. We need to engage the imagination in all of our creative projects.

Imagination is needed to shape a theory or a hypothesis, and Whitehead argued a long time ago that pure induction could never produce a scientific view of the world. A heap of facts was useless, and neither a Homeric epic nor a scientific theory of evolution could ever be produced from mere facts. For people in a pre-scientific culture, people endowed with acute powers of observation and remarkable sensitivity, there was no way to imagine the life at one's feet except through the poetic imagination which made the little creatures half human. And in a way, this poetic imagination of the ancients is more sensitive to humanity's embeddedness in the biosphere, for in seeing "the little people" as half human the ancient Irish "fairy faith" recognized that there is no "us" and "them," that we are in them, and they are in us.

         The imagination is, therefore, not a source of deception and delusion, but a capacity to sense what you do not know, to intuit what you cannot understand, to be more than you can know.

           William Irwin Thompson

Imagination also plays an important part in your subjective life, as it gives mobility to your beliefs. It is one of the motivating agencies that helps transform your beliefs into physical experience. It is vital therefore that you understand the interrelationship between ideas and imagination. In order to dislodge unsuitable beliefs and establish new ones, you must learn to use your imagination to move concepts in and out of your mind. The proper use of imagination can then propel ideas in the directions you desire.

Jane Roberts, Seth

The 6^th Day of Christmas: Virgo: Who we may Become.

The 6^th Day of Christmas is Virgo, the sign of the Virgin Mother. The Wisdom of Virgo is self-knowledge – Know ThySelf! After we create something, we have a better idea of who we are. It’s time now to see ourselves as a unity – Body, Soul & Spirit. Since the ancient royal star Regulus, which sits in the Heart of the Lion, moved into the sign of Virgo by precession, the Queen took the place of the King. It is now time to honor the Divine Feminine and her place in life.

 

A great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; she was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth, in anguish for delivery. And another portent appeared in heaven; behold, a great red dragon. . . And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, that he might devour her child when she brought it forth; she brought forth a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne, and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God. . .

Now war arose in heaven. . .and the great dragon was thrown down. And when the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had borne the male child. But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle that she might fly from the serpent. . .

                                                  Revelation 12: 1-6, 7-9, 13-14.

The Gnostics held this heavenly Feminine Spirit in high regard, naming her Sophia, or Lady Wisdom. Sophia is the feminine Wisdom of God, a divine spirit pervading all of life. She partakes of the power of the Creator, is capable of doing all things and is regarded as the mother of the gifts of wisdom and prophecy. She is creator, wisdom and teacher, wise in the ways of humanity, Divinity and nature. In certain mystical traditions she is the consort of God and the lover and inspiration of the wise. Solomon, the archetypal Wise man, declares his love for her: “Her have I loved and have sought her out from my youth, and have desired to take her for my spouse; and I became a lover of her beauty.”

                                                                Cathy Pagano, Wisdom’s Daughters

Sophia, one of the first-born of the primal parents, Depth and Silence, is confused by longing and love for her Divine Parent, and falls into the abyss. Alone and comfortless, Sophia experiences every sort of psychic experience imaginable – passion, sorrow, fear, despair and ignorance. These experiences flow out of her and create not only the four elements of earth, air, fire and water, but also the Beings who end up creating and controlling our world. Looking at the flawed and troubled world created by her own ignorant offspring, Sophia is filled with pity for creation and resolves to assist it in any way she can. Thus she becomes the spirit of the world, the Anima Mundi, watching over it like a mother. Feminine wisdom, entrapped in the material world, must be rescued by the Masculine principle. Yet when her consort, Christ, comes into the world to rescue her and bring her back to the heavenly realms, Sophia finds that she cannot totally abandon this troubled world. And so she splits herself in half, part of her going to the fullness of heaven and the other part staying in touch with this lower world to aid in its redemption. 

                                                                        Gnostic Myth of Sophia 

The 7^th Day of Christmas: Libra: Hold the Other in your Heart

The Wisdom of Libra is that once we become whole, we seek another's wholeness to balance the world.  So how do we take our Wisdom into the world? By holding those others you know in your heart – walking in their shoes, doing to others what you would do for yourself. We can call it courtesy or respect, but in the end, it’s all about our ability to love. Venus, the Goddess of Love and Wisdom, makes her home here. She helps us consider others as well as ourselves. That’s the great secret of Libran balance. You must stay on your side of the scale to make things work out.

Crowley Lovers

There is scarcely anything more difficult than to love one another. That it is work, day labor, day labor, God knows there is no other word for it. And look, added to this is the fact that young people are not prepared for such difficult loving; for convention has tried to make this most complicated and ultimate relationship into something easy and frivolous, has given it the appearance of everyone’s being able to do it. It is not so. Love is something difficult and it is more difficult than other things because in other conflicts nature herself enjoins men to collect themselves, to take themselves firmly in hand with all their strength, while in the heightening of love the impulse is to give oneself wholly away. But just think, can that be anything beautiful, to give oneself away not as something whole and ordered, but haphazard rather, bit by bit, as it comes? Can such giving away, that looks so like a throwing away and dismemberment, be anything good, can it be happiness, joy, progress? No, it cannot.

But young people who love each other fling themselves to each other in the impatience and haste of their passion, and they don’t notice at all what a lack of mutual esteem lies in this disordered giving of themselves; they notice it with astonishment and indignation only from the dissension that arises between them out of all this disorder. And once there is disunity between them, the confusion grows with every day; neither of the two has anything unbroken pure, and unspoiled about him any longer, and amid the disconsolateness of a break they try to hold fast to the semblance of their happiness (for all that was really supposed to be for the sake of happiness). Also, they are scarcely able to recall any more what they meant by happiness. In his uncertainty each becomes more and more unjust toward the other; they who wanted to do each other good are now handling one another in an imperious and intolerant manner and in the struggle somehow to get out of their untenable and unbearable state of confusion, they commit the greatest fault that can happen in human relationship: they become impatient. . . . They must not forget, when they love, that they are beginners, bunglers of life, apprentices in love, - must learn love, and that (like all learning) wants peace, patience, and composure!

To take love seriously and to bear and to learn it like a task, this it is that young people need. – Like so much else, people have also misunderstood the place of love in life, they have made it into play and pleasure, because they thought that play and pleasure were more blissful than work; but there is nothing happier than work, and love, just because it is the extreme happiness, can be nothing else but work. So whoever loves must try to act if he had a great work: he must be much alone and go into himself and collect himself and hold fast to himself; he must work; he must become something!

For believe me, the more one is, the richer is all that one experiences. And whoever wants to have a deep love in his life must collect and save for it and gather honey.

Rilke: On Love and Other Difficulties

The 8^th Day of Christmas: Scorpio: Do Not Fear Death!

The Wisdom of Scorpio is that Death is the other side of Life. That it is not to be feared nor embraced. Death comes in its own time and place, assigned to our souls at the moment we stepped into a new incarnation. The best way to connect to our deaths is by taking ‘death as our advisor’ as don Juan says. And to learn to die to our ego’s rules and certainties which no longer serve our lives so we can open up to the new perspectives waiting beyond our sight.

Don Juan Matus, the Yaqui Indian, taught Carlos Castaneda about facing his death.

"Death is our eternal companion," don Juan said with a most serious air. "It is always to our left, at an arm's length. It was watching you when you were watching the white falcon; it whispered in your ear and you felt its chill, as you felt it today. It has always been watching you. It always will until the day it taps you."

"The thing to do when you're impatient," he proceeded, "is to turn to your left and ask advice from your death. An immense amount of pettiness is dropped if your death makes a gesture to you, or if you catch a glimpse of it, or if you just have the feeling that your companion is there watching you."

"Death is the only wise adviser that we have. Whenever you feel, as you always do, that everything is going wrong and you're about to be annihilated, turn to your death and ask if that is so. Your death will tell you that you're wrong; that nothing really matters outside its touch. Your death will tell you, 'I haven't touched you yet.'"

"Yes," he said softly after a long pause. "One of us here has to change, and fast. One of us here has to learn again that death is the hunter, and that it is always to one's left. One of us here has to ask death's advice and drop the cursed pettiness that belongs to men that live their lives as if death will never tap them."

Carlos Castaneda, Journey to Ixtlan

The 9^th Day of Christmas: Sagittarius: What is True and Real?

The Wisdom of Sagittarius is to widen and deepen our perspective and keep an open attitude toward life. Old social and religious beliefs that keep us apart and cause antagonism must be left behind in Scorpio’s dark waters. We are living in an age where we are all one. Can we go out into the world and discern truth from falsehood, what is real from what is fake? Can we hear truth?

The Native Americans treasured the Wisdom of the Earth. This is our task now.

Earth, Teach Me

Earth teach me quiet ~ as the grasses are still with new light.
Earth teach me suffering ~ as old stones suffer with memory.
Earth teach me humility ~ as blossoms are humble with beginning.
Earth teach me caring ~ as mothers nurture their young.
Earth teach me courage ~ as the tree that stands alone.
Earth teach me limitation ~ as the ant that crawls on the ground.
Earth teach me freedom ~ as the eagle that soars in the sky.
Earth teach me acceptance ~ as the leaves that die each fall.
Earth teach me renewal ~ as the seed that rises in the spring.
Earth teach me to forget myself ~ as melted snow forgets its life.
Earth teach me to remember kindness ~ as dry fields weep with rain.

- An Ute Prayer

“The Lakota was a true Naturist - a Lover of Nature. He loved the earth and all things of the earth, the attachment growing with age. The old people came literally to love the soil and they sat or reclined on the ground with a feeling of being close to a mothering power. It was good for the skin to touch the earth and the old people liked to remove their moccasins and walk with bare feet on the sacred earth. Their tipis were built upon the earth and their altars were made of earth. The birds that flew in the air came to rest upon the earth and it was the final abiding place of all things that lived and grew. The soil was soothing, strengthening, cleansing and healing.

That is why the old Indian still sits upon the earth instead of propping himself up and away from its life-giving forces. For him, to sit or lie upon the ground is to be able to think more deeply and to feel more keenly; he can see more clearly into the mysteries of life and come closer in kinship to other lives about him. . . .

Kinship with all creatures of the earth, sky and water was a real and active principle. For the animal and bird world there existed a brotherly feeling that kept the Lakota safe among them and so close did some of the Lakotas come to their feathered and furred friends that in true brotherhood they spoke a common tongue.

The old Lakota was wise. He knew that man's heart away from nature becomes hard; he knew that lack of respect for growing, living things soon led to lack of respect for humans too. So he kept his youth close to its softening influence.”

Luther Standing Bear, a Lakota/Sioux medicine man

“Will you teach your children what we have taught our children? That the earth is our mother? What befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth.

This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself."²
Attributed to Chief Seattle

The 10^th Day of Christmas: Capricorn: Transforming Society

The Wisdom of Capricorn is that society serves the people’s needs. Since corporations have become ‘people’, western society and now all the world are serving those corporate entities, not the people. The Wisdom of Capricorn is with us now that Saturn has returned to his own home sign. Saturn is ‘the reality principle’, the essential nature of something. Saturn will follow along Pluto’s trail of societal disruption and collect what is his due. The Wisdom of Capricorn tells us it is up to each one of us to create our society anew. When we do, we need to put people at the center, not the economy. We need to put people and our lives, our hopes and dreams, our health and our communities at the center. The economy, like our left-brain rationality, is a tool for doing that but it can’t be the central pillar of our society, because when it is, it leads to destruction, inequality and greed. 

 

Albert Einstein called the intuitive or metaphoric mind a sacred gift. He added that the rational mind was a faithful servant. It is paradoxical that in the context of modern life we have begun to worship the servant and defile the divine.

Bob Samples, The Metaphoric Mind: A Celebration of Creative Consciousness

Whether we acknowledge it or not, we are held and sustained within the arms of Mother Earth. Just as surely, the life of the planet Earth is now in our hands. Earth is the only home we have. How could we have gotten so separated from our home that we would come close to destroying it with our poisons and our waste, our wars and our unsustainable economy and population? We are faced with the stark truth of climate change, which is disrupting our weather, melting the glaciers at alarming rates and heating up the gulf stream, which could bring on another Ice Age. By allowing our governments to ignore these signs we are taking away our children’s future. If women can remember our relationship with our mother Earth, we can become spokeswomen for her Sovereignty. We have a choice, and we are responsible to our children’s children for seven generations. Each woman can become the consciousness and the conscience of the Earth. When we incarnate feminine wisdom, we give the Earth back Her essential power and mystery, which is based in the spirit of life and the testing of death.

Cathy Pagano, Wisdom’s Daughters: How Women Can Change the World

The 11^th Day of Christmas: Aquarius: Share a Better Vision of the Future

The Wisdom of Aquarius is that we have to work together to create a better society. The power of the Group is the power to share responsibilities and gifts, so we don’t have to go it alone.

What can our brilliant technology do to help support a healthier, more creative society? We’ve already seen how technology is used for greed, violence, falsehoods and manipulation as well as how it has the potential to connect us with each other. While Internet technology has created havoc, it has also been a place to find our tribes. Now we have to go outside those tribes and find where we all agree.   We are all connect in Indra's Net.

 

“There is an almost sensual longing for communion with others with a larger vision. The immense fulfillment of the friendship between those engaged in furthering the evolution of consciousness, has a quality impossible to describe.”

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

"Your imagination and your initiative and your indignation will determine whether we build a society where progress is the servant of our needs, or a society where old values and new visions are buried under unbridled growth. For in your time we have the opportunity to move not only toward the rich society and the powerful society, but upward to the Great Society.

The Great Society rests on abundance and liberty for all. It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice, to which we are totally committed in our time. But that is just the beginning.

The Great Society is a place where every child can find knowledge to enrich his mind and to enlarge his talents. It is a place where leisure is a welcome chance to build and reflect, not a feared cause of boredom and restlessness. It is a place where the city of man serves not only the needs of the body and the demands of commerce but the desire for beauty and the hunger for community. It is a place where man can renew contact with nature. It is a place which honors creation for its own sake and for what it adds to the understanding of the race. It is a place where men are more concerned with the quality of their goals than the quantity of their goods.

But most of all, the Great Society is not a safe harbor, a resting place, a final objective, a finished work. It is a challenge constantly renewed, beckoning us toward a destiny where the meaning of our lives matches the marvelous products of our labor."

                                        

                                               President Lyndon B. Johnson

The 12^th Day of Christmas: Pisces: The Soul of Humanity

The Wisdom of Pisces is that we’re all ONE. That humans are the same, regardless of skin color, religion, society, gender and sexuality. Isn’t it time to stop being afraid of each other, afraid of life itself? That’s what patriarchy has taught us. But in a partnership vision of life, we are here on Earth to have a human experience of the beauty of the material world. Imagine that you’re from another planet and you’ve chosen to come to Earth to experience its joys and sorrows. What an adventure! It’s time to explore, to go ‘where no one has gone before’.

Quantum Universe

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

Alber Einstein

Love is the Water of Life.

And a Lover is a soul of Fire.

The Universe turns differently

When Fire Love Water.

Rumi

I do not know what bounds may be placed on the power of the imagination. It can heal the body, reveal the secrets of divine truth, transform the personality, incarnate God, and open up worlds of infinite diversity and potential.

Jeffrey Raff, Jung and the Alchemical Imagination

"In this crucial time of our Earth walk, it is essential that we women reclaim our ability to nurture, create, and renew life. It is our responsibility to heal ourselves, reclaim the healing power that is ours, and thus form a solid foundation for transformation on other levels of life. "

Brooke Medicine Eagle

"The world will be saved by the western woman.”

His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Peace Summit in Vancouver, 2009

Winter Solstice: The Re-Birth of the Light

Winter Solstice:

The Re-Birth of the Light

Solstice Sunrise

The Wheel of the Year begins at Winter Solstice, the birthday of the Sun and of our New Year. This first gateway is the time when the northern hemisphere experiences more hours of darkness than hours of light in the day. At the Autumn Equinox, the Sun begins its yearly journey south of the Equator, and at the Winter Solstice has moved as far South as it possibly can. At Winter Solstice, the Sun seems to stand still for three days before it begins its journey back North.

The time of greatest darkness! And yet, it is within this time of great darkness that the sunlight seems to be reborn, because now the hours of daylight will begin to grow and the hours of darkness will lessen. In the same way, the inner Light of Spirit is once again reborn out of the death and darkness of another year. The story of the Divine Child’s birth resonates in our hearts because it is in the darkness of unknowing that we hope and pray a deeper Light and fuller life await us in the coming year.

Down through the ages, our ancestors expressed their connection with the Earth by celebrating these markers of the Sun’s journey through the year.

In all cultures, the Winter Solstice is a time of thanksgiving, a time of rejoicing and a time of hope, when the beauty and truth of the Light is remembered and honored. We light fires in hearths and in candles, gather together with our loved ones, give and receive presents, and make wishes for the New Year. For this small space of time, we embrace the ideal of Peace on Earth, Goodwill toward All. 

 

At each of the eight gateways of the year, we connect to the natural laws governing this world and the cosmos. Inner and outer become One, and Life's dramas are manifest. It is at Winter Solstice that the truth of our Oneness is most evident. The season’s gift of the outer darkness provides a mirror to our inner darkness and aloneness. And that’s the moment we pray for the Light. In the deepest Darkness, we search for the Light. And when we find it, we share the precious gift with our loved ones and community. Our celebrations and joy are the gifts of gratitude we offer to Life for the amazing blessing of the Light.

            Sun sits on the Milky Way on Winter Solstice

           So come and sit around a fire and let me tell you a story….

          This is a tale that has been told by the women of my family for generations; it is always told before an open fire on the darkest day of the year. When I was a little girl, this was one of my favorite times, for although the days were short, there was always light and joy and hope in our house as the family gathered 'round the glowing fire to listen to my grandmother tell this story. As I grew older, my mother took her turn as storyteller, and now it is my turn to tell you this tale.

This is a story about Grace. Do you know what Grace is? No? Well, Grace is a gift that Spirit bestows on all of us, regardless of whether we deserve it or not. It is an unexpected gift of Love, which we need to recognize and be thankful for.

Once upon a time, there was a land shrouded in darkness. This was not always so; at one time, it had been a land of great Light and depth and beauty.

Until The Darkness appeared. And strange things began to happen.

At first, the darkness was just a vague impression on the edge of sight, an uneasiness that tickled awareness—then fled. Over time, the tickle turned into a shiver as the darkness sent out tendrils, like premonitions, in the night. People were not afraid, however, for one reason: this darkness made the Light in the land even more beautiful and radiant. The darkness became a riddle that called out for an answer.

       But as time went on and the riddle went unanswered, people forgot to notice and give thanks for the Light, for they were fascinated by the darkness. And slowly, over time, the darkness spread and the Light became dimmer and dimmer, though the people didn't even notice that the Light had changed. You see, their eyes became accustomed to the dimness and they could see just as well as ever, or so they thought. 

        But not everyone forgot the beauty of the Light that used to cover the land. Sometimes these people read about it in old books; oftentimes they dreamed about it; and some passed the knowledge of it down within their families from generation to generation. And in not forgetting the Light, it turned out that it lived on in their imaginations so brightly that it filled their eyes with its very own clarity, and they could see things that other people could not see. But the ones who remembered were only a few compared to the others, and if they talked about what they could see, they were most often ignored and sometimes reviled.

          Eventually the land grew so dark that more people began to acknowledge that they really couldn't see very well at all! But since there were so many others still stumbling around in the dark, everything became even more chaotic and frantic. In short, things got even worse!

And the Darkness deepened. 

One day, a woman sat watching her children at play. This woman was neither young nor yet very old, and her children were not babes nor yet were they grown. And because she was one of those who loved the memory of the Light, and imagined it and longed for it until it shone in her eyes, she saw something no one else saw. She saw her children, who were filled with a sense of her own inner Light, growing dimmer and dimmer with each passing day, for the full weight of the darkness around them was too hard to fight off.

Gradually a resolve grew in this mother until one night when she put her children to bed, she told them she was leaving on a journey, and why. Since she didn’t know how long she’d be gone, she wanted them to take care of each other, to love each other, and to remember her own love for them every day. She promised she’d come back to them as soon as she could. 

           The woman set out that very night, determined to travel to the source of the Light which used  to cover the land, and entreat it to come back with her. Although she had no idea where to begin her search, she walked through the cold lonely winter night with great joy in her heart, despite her worry at leaving her children. For she rejoiced in the thought of seeing the Light at last, the Light she had loved and imagined all her life. She soon found herself singing to the Light in the dark of the night. And although their own light was very much dimmed in that land, still the stars and the Moon in heaven heard that mother's song, and they sang back to her melodies of the glory she was searching for. 

            In the morning, the woman came to the outskirts of a village. But something was terribly wrong! Trees had been uprooted and left to rot; the fields had been dug up in piles of dirt, while all the animals in the fields looked as if no one had taken them back to the barn for weeks! In the village, it was even worse. People scurried around like unsettled ants. They were so focused on looking for something they completely ignored the woman, even when she called out to them. She had never seen such chaos!

The villagers were dismantling their homes, turning up the streets, peering into dark places. When she finally managed to get someone to stop and speak to her, she was told there was a great treasure of gold hidden somewhere within the village, and whoever found it would be rich beyond imagining. Then before she could ask another question, the villager rushed off to continue his search. 

Shaken by what she was seeing, the woman came upon the village green—a small patch of undisturbed green grass with one white bare-branched birch tree. As she walked over to rest under the tree, she saw the most beautiful golden glow (like the glow of a summer sunrise in our world!). When she came to the tree, she saw within the golden light a carved wooden chest full of gold coins!

There, right in the midst of the village, was the gold in plain sight! Yet obviously, no one saw it! As a matter of fact, she began to notice that people's eyes glazed over as they looked in the direction of the green, as if they couldn't even see the tree—as if they saw nothing at all! Then they quickly turned their gaze away and began seriously squinting at the ground they had already gone over. The woman watched this for a while and sighing, shook her head, silently turning to go. It was not for her to take the gold, even if she could carry it away. 

At the edge of the green she stopped, for she noticed a young man building a house. As she watched him, she saw that he had the eyes of a dreamer, and that there was some Light in him. So she went to him and brought him to the tree, and asked what he could see. Why, the tree of course! And the green, green grass.

The mother looked in his eyes and asked if he could see anything else. He held her gaze and then blinked and looked again. Well, he couldn’t say for sure, but he did imagine there was a hazy golden something in the air. So he asked the woman to describe the gold to him and perhaps he could imagine what it looks like. The woman describes the light and the gold, and before very long the young man could see the skillful workmanship of the carved chest, and the abundance and goldenness of the coins. The woman told him to take the gold and use it to help the villagers rebuild their homes after the madness of the search passed.    
    

And the young man solemnly promised to do it. 

At nightfall, the woman found herself deep in the woods near an ash tree on a grassy knoll. Pulling her cloak tightly around her, she lay down under the tree, planning to rest for a few hours before continuing on her way. As she slept, she dreamed a round, luminous Moon came down out of the heavens and sank into the Earth beneath the tree. She got up to search for it and started digging up the dirt around the roots, until she came upon a pearl-like crystal, which shed its milky light upon the tree, giving it a glimmering sheen. The light grew brighter and her heart filled with hope that she had finally found what she was seeking.

Suddenly the villagers were all around her and when they saw the light-giving crystal, they took out their pick-axes and hammers and began chipping away at the stone, until all the light disappeared and there were only shards of crystal left scattered on the ground.

The woman awoke, crying.

She desperately searched the darkness of the surrounding forest, fearful that the villagers had come, but there were only the animals and birds of that place, making little adjustments in their dens and nests. She looked at the knoll beneath the tree, and without thinking, began digging in the ground. Very soon she came upon the shining stone of her dream, and with an anguished cry, she stopped. She didn't want to expose the light, but it was her only clue to finding the Light.

Elana Gibeault ~ Artist

What should she do? What should she do?

She sat there, waiting . . . waiting for an answer. And before long it came. She heard a gentle voice telling her to Come in. But come in where? Why into the stone, of course! And once again without thinking, the woman stretched out her hand to the stone and suddenly found herself slipping into its pearly light. 

Once inside the luminous light, she was filled with such sweet warmth that it brought to mind an old memory of a time when her grandmother rocked her to sleep. In truth, she felt as if she was being held within a woman's arms, all safe and snug and listening to a lullaby about the beauty of the Light that used to shine upon the land.

Her quest! And with the memory came a voice that bide her to go on, on through the luminescence in search of the source of the Light. She felt a gentle shove on her back and started walking, even though she could discern no path for her feet to follow.

Quite unexpectedly, she found herself in darkness again, but this time a very warm, almost cozy darkness. Before long, she realized she could see what was around her, because unlike the upper world, this lower world's darkness was very alive! She saw all the flower bulbs tucked into the Earth for the winter, just as snug as her own children in their beds at night.

She saw the roots of trees stretching down into the Earth, just as their branches reached up to the heavens above. There were rivers and streams of pure water, flowing through crystal rocks, as well as solid rivers of gold, silver and copper veining the ledge. The stones themselves were so colorful, they rivaled our most beautiful sunsets, and there were gem stones that twinkle like the stars in heaven! She walked past all these wonders until she came to the center of the Earth, and in that crystal cavern, beyond a pool of azure water, she saw a glorious Light. 

Gazing across the watery depths, her heart thundered and tears flowed down her cheeks. Here was the Light she was seeking. On the wings of that joy, she suddenly found herself standing before the source of that Light.

There, in the heart of a shining halo, was a Child, a most wondrous and beautiful Child. And just as mothers always do, the mother couldn't help but smile with love at the sight of the tiny Child enfolded in the Light. The Child looked at the woman with a tender smile and she seemed to hear it say to her, I’ve waited for you so long! How glad I am you’ve finally come."

With these words, the woman's heart grew large with love and she bent over to pick up the Child, cradling the baby in her arms. She wrapped the baby inside her cloak and turning, left the cavern. She made her way back to the pearly chamber, and as she passed through it, she felt a feather-light kiss upon her brow and knew that she was loved just as surely as she loved the small baby in her arms. 

She couldn’t say for sure when she finally left the luminous light behind and emerged into the wintry night, because the pearly light and the first snowflakes blended into each other. As she hurried home with her precious burden, the snowflakes drifted down faster and faster from the night sky, and she had to go slower and slower. But a Light shone from within her cloak where the Child lay next to her heart, and as she went on, the animals of the forest and the winged ones of the air saw the Light and followed after her.

        She silently passed through the village, now quiet and cozy under its blanket of snow. As she passed, the young dreamer suddenly awoke in his chair next to his hearth, and with a cry of delight, ran out into the snowy night. Then the children of the village woke up from their sleep and ran to their windows to see the Light filling the night with splendor, and they called joyously to their parents to Come out! Come out! And see the great wonder. 

        The mother finally approached her own village, followed by a great crowd of humans and animals. She was so intent on getting home to her own children that she didn’t see they were already hurrying down the road to meet her, for the Light now flew before her and filled the night.

        When the mother saw her children standing there in the snowy night, her face lit up and she stumbled through the snow to embrace them. Then, gently unclasping her cloak, she bent down to show them the baby. A great glory shone from the Child, and all the creatures there that night imagined that they each sheltered the baby from the storm. Everyone felt their hearts open and they smiled, just as anyone would smile at the sight of a beautiful newborn baby, and the Child smiled contentedly back.

         No one could quite remember when the Child and the Light began to fade away with the storm, except the mother who heard the silent farewell in her heart. The stars glittered brightly in the cold dark sky and the Moon sent down her blessing. Blessed with this unexpected grace, the people felt a great peace and joy descend upon them, the Light once again shining in their eyes. The animals and the birds sang out their own joy, and there was great rejoicing all around. And in the days that followed, the humans and animals made a peace which exists to this day.

         And from that night, the Light and the image of the Child lived on in their hearts, and it spread from heart to heart, until the Light was as bright as it had once been in the land. Now, all people could see and love the Light, but they didn’t reject the Darkness, for they had finally solved the riddle. They knew that the Darkness had a beauty all its own. 

 

For it was in the Darkness that the light of the stars and the Moon brought to mind the Child and the Light that had come back to them on that cold and snowy winter's night. 

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© Copyright 2017 ~CATHY PAGANO  All Rights Reserved