love

Today is the winter solstice.  One of my favorite days!  I saw a photo of Stonehenge and the sun rising, the light coming through a narrow opening in a huge stone.  Beauty.

This day has a very long history in the life of humans.  Without scientific knowledge, we were moved to celebrate this day.  We knew something was happening.  The turning of the wheel (yule).

Nature has her own rhythms.  We do ourselves (and others) a great disservice when we forget who we are, nature too.  Our misalignments lead to suffering…we are not machines.

As I take the holiday seasons slower, I am amazed at how our culture demands exactly the opposite of what nature is singing.  Nature, with her cold, is saying, "Slow down, breathe, stay warm,"  yet we are bombarded with "Go, go, go!"  The music, the commercials, the false idea of a everyone having food, family and love.  Shopping, shopping shopping.   We are told this is love.

I watch people rushing, kids crying, people buying things and I am still.  I am grateful for the stillness.  It tells me there is nothing to prove, nothing to fix, nothing to make, nothing to pretend.

I shared this in my meditation group the other day and I'll share it again:

I saw the photo of the pope with his hand resting on top of a disfigured man's head (tumors all over his  head due to an illness).  This photo distills what love is.  I cannot think of it without having a deep emotional reaction.

My reaction is this: that is what we are here for, to accept each other, to see beyond our vision, to move beyond our idea of "survival of the fittest" and "more for you means less for me, competition".

I cry not out of sadness of the ill man but at the humanity of someone touching him, touching his ugliness, reaching out with love.

This holy season of love, of coming out of the darkness and light returning, is summed up in that photo.

May we all reach out and touch our ugliness with love.  May we all recognize the suffering of others and not look away.  May we remember what it feels like to be lost and alone.  May we move out of the world of 'ME" and into the real (natural) world of "WE".  This is the lesson of life.