Silent night, holy night
All is calm, all is bright…
Is it?
Bright – yes. We’ve exchanged soft lights brightening our homes during long winter nights and ancient fires we’d gather around to find warmth and listen to stories for too intense illumination in shopping centres and a cacophony of colourful neon signs. When nature slows down, goes inwards to prepare for the next season, we, humans, developed a rush, hectic times of preparation, annoyingly repeating ads and loads of stress. The night is no longer silent, calm nor holy. Yet, reaching for this much needed silence and calm is always as simple as one deep breath. Simple, but not easy.
This year I’ve had a very special holiday season. An accident made my life pause. My outer life, I should specify, for my inner life gained an opportunity to flourish. Maybe not flourish… It feels more like… prepare a fertile soil for a seed not yet planted. Anyway, for the first time in my life, I’ve spent a whole month at home, mostly in bed. Not going anywhere, no running, no preparations. My Mind hated it at first, constantly reminding me what should I do, where should I be, and on, and on. Then, slowly but surely, just like the healing of my bones, it went quiet, overtaken by a potent inner silence and simple presence.
Except the crazy Christmas time, I find winter a really great season for inner journeying. I have the 13th gene key in my Attractor field, and (accordingly ;)), this lovely article by Richard Rudd recently crossed my browser. I quote a fragment and invite you to read further:
The tradition of making New Year Resolutions is based upon natural life processes. As life evolves, embracing higher and higher forms of consciousness, it always has to let go of something first. However, the natural timing of these rituals has been forgotten, at least in the West. The Chinese New Year in February is a much more aligned timing than our Western version. Our current placing of New Year’s Day on January 1st is actually deeply unnatural. The sun’s sequence from January 21 takes it through the 41st, the 19th and then the 13th Gene Keys in the wheel. The 41 is the new dream (Emanation), the 19 is the letting go of the old form (Sacrifice) and the 13 (Imbolc) represents the actual death and transformation into a higher form. This entire process then culminates in the 49th Gene Key (Rebirth). It is an incredibly powerful time of year, a fact that our ancestors knew well and celebrated. So if you have a New Year’s Resolution to make, forget New Year’s Eve! Instead, use the time leading up to Imbolc to inwardly listen to the secret impulses of the universe and its wishes.
– Richard Rudd – The Coming of the Ice Moon
If this silent, inward looking winter season inspires you to look into the last year or the past in a broader sense, I invite you to simply pause and look at this field of experiences, instead of abruptly “breaking with the past”, “seeing through rose-tinted spectacles”, “new year, new me”, affirming something or being mentally “grateful” for difficulties and suffering. Just look and see, without putting a label of “success” or “failure”, without preparing a list of pros and cons, conjuring a story for every little detail, assessing and judging. Just look and nod with a soft gaze and gentle smile. Yes, it may be a debris field, but it is mine, it is unique and worth my respect, so I embrace and own it, waiting for its unseen seeds and sprouts to grow without me even knowing about it.
So in this special post-Christmas season, in the flood of New Year’s Resolutions memes, last minute sales and heightened anxiety about what we’ve managed (or not) to do last year, I wish you a quiet moment of presence and a soft, compassionate gaze (or even a smile?) at all your failures, broken dreams, unfulfilled hopes, sufferings and successes alike!
Being human is not easy, but it has its moments, right? And these labels given to our experiences are only in our precious minds anyway. Let the gentleness of our contemplation slowly but surely silence all our inner critics and thus, silently, change the world.
