It’s Solstice. We have candles burning. I’ve finished with the holiday baking and sending packages and holiday greetings. It’s time, now, to be quiet, letting go of planning, and enter being.

Solstice is an ancient holy day, long before organized religions, and often celebrated some deity who was born shortly after the Solstice. From out of the darkness, light was born from a Great Mother. The birth most of us are familiar with is that of Jesus, but for an interesting list, look here.

But the mother I think most about at this time of year is my own. I can see her, standing at the west window of the farm house, looking at the lilac bush, devoid of leaves, only scraggly branches, but it gave her a measuring rod.

In the few days leading up to the Solstice, Mother would go to the window and mark where the sun was through the branches. Each day, she would go at the same time, late in the afternoon, and check the Sun’s placement. As Solstice, she would stand longer at the window, because she knew the Sun would sit there for three days. She didn’t say anything, she just stood and looked. And on the third day, when the Sun began inching itself up again through the branches, she would smile and sigh.

It make me think, in my young years, it was because of my mother’s vigilance that the Sun returned.

It’s always a chance, a time for setting intentions for a new cycle, for a re-birthing into the light of our own lives.

So I wish you a happy and holy/wholly Solstice return of light. May your life and work be filled with the richness and peace that can be birthed for each of us, from darkness, and sometimes hopelessness, to hope.

Peace be with you. Peace be with us all. When we can live in hope and peace, when we offer that to all we meet, the light returns.

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