such a winter's day

all the leaves are brown
and the sky is grey
I've been for a walk
on a winter's day

stopped into a church
I passed along the way
well, I dropped down on my knees
and I pretend to pray

California Dreamin'
on such a winter's day                                        
  

-the mamas and the papas

Like my friend Macha, it’s been quite awhile since I’ve blogged. This time between Thanksgiving and solstice has been a time of inner work and laying low. It’s always a dicey time for me and quite possibly always will be. Having a parent who commits suicide right before solstice gives the season that extra special something.

Most years I find comfort in the overt honoring the dark and trusting that light will return that celebrating solstice provides. And some years the cheery Christmas songs and pressure to find or make gifts that will please makes me want to jump off the bridge. There’s a big golden one quite nearby. The beauty of it never fails to take my breath away in the best kind of way, but every time I cross it I wonder if this will be the time I catch a glance of someone leaping. Beauty and despair so many times are c lose companions.

The flu laid me out for almost two weeks, letting up just enough over the weekend before last to allow me to travel to Esalen to participate in and priestess Jeremy’s memorial service. On the drive down it became clear that I was not going to escape the truism that one loss brings back all other losses.

As we got closer to Big Sur, grief closed in on me. To me, Big Sur is the dividing line between northern and southern California, and it is a gate to something that goes beyond words. Maybe it’s that place where beauty and despair dance cheek to cheek. It’s a place that my father loved, and was also favored by that famous depressive I loved so much in my youth, Richard Brautigan. As you get closer to Big Sur, you can feel the power and potency of the elemental forces. There is a natural hot spring at Esalen, bringing together the best of water and fire. Air and earth loom large here as well, with the mighty Pacific crashing against the huge ancient rocks, and looking out, you can’t help but marvel at the way the sky meets the sea.

There’s magic in how places like this reverberate with the potency of loneliness, grief and depression while also providing a balm for the same. I found myself crying for not only the loss of Jeremy, but for all the losses of friends, family, and even the loss of the pride I use to feel being part of the spiritual tradition I took part in crafting. But as Bruce Springsteen sings; “Everything dies, baby, that’s a fact. But maybe everything that dies someday comes back”. I’m thinking that just may be true, but feeling sad that there’s those I won’t set my eyes on again in this lifetime and feeling the tenderness that a heart can feel when it lets go of old illusions.

So, I’m going thru the motions, pretending to pray until something shifts, and that old fierce optimism returns. The solstice altar is under construction, and the crèche for the baby sun is up on the mantel place. This weekend I plan to make presents for my loved ones, and I just began playing the musical solstice compilations that my friend Steward sends me every year. Light will return, baby, that’s a fact. But then, everything that returns someday goes back. Such is this dance of light and dark, and beauty and despair. Are there really any other dance steps?