The world has tilted far from the sun, from color and juice. I am waiting for a birth that will change everything. (Llewelyn-Williams)
What needs to be reborn in your life? (Matthews)
The rebirth of the light begins on this day, even though it may seem as short and dark as yesterday when winter solstice gave us the least amount of light followed by the greatest period of darkness. In Ireland at Newgrange, there is a megalithic structure erected eons ago where on the shortest day of the year, a thin finger of light passed through an aperture at dawn. To the ancients who constructed it, the return of the sun, the light that gave life, must have been everything, and special celebrations encouraged the return of the light on this day.
The Standing Stones in this photograph are certainly not Newgrange, but rather a smaller structure in a series of such Stones on the Wild Atlantic Way in Ireland. These were in a cottage garden where I stayed for a month. Frequently during that time, I would watch busloads of tourists stop for ten minutes or so, climb about over the stones, laughing, taking pictures, getting back on the bus . . . Continuing on their Journey. Maybe honoring the Stones and the Possibility of the return of light in our own 21st century manner (or at least I’d like to think so) . . .
If you stand in the sunlight at midday today, you will see that your shadow is the very longest it can be. You can get your best glimpse of that shadow, and maybe it might occur to you to reflect upon the partnership of Light and Shadow in your own life.
At this time, we do indeed wait for “a birth that will change everything” . . . Not just for Christians awaiting the birth of Jesus Christ, but for many earlier societies also celebrating new beginnings at this time of year with festivals of light and renewal, this was a time of necessary rebirth.
Kinda exciting, isn’t it, to think about what needs or wants to be reborn in one’s own life? And what kind of new life might come from brokenness . . .
