As I understand it December 25th is the first day after the winter solstice in which the position of the rising sun can be discerned to have shifted from the day before, at least with the naked eye. In the northern hemisphere we are gaining daylight now but in the few days between solstice and Christmas, there seemed to be a pause in the length of days. I like that pause.
I thought it must have snowed when I woke up in a dark, hushed world this morning. Snow had been forecast. The top on my head was pounding so I knew the barometric pressure was low but it was too dark outside to see through the windows and I dug deeper to try to ease my aching head and to await the tipping point when desire for coffee would outweigh the disinclination to scuff through a chilly house and brew it.
Silence persisted and so did the sense of benevolence that wrapped me in the soft darkness. The electricity was on. I could hear a fan running. What was the silence?
This year I traversed the winter holidays as though on foot, as though I were a turtle. I moved as slowly as possible. I hosted one large potluck party (but all I did was decorate, which I love doing) one dinner party for six (but I started preparing two months in advance), Christmas Eve with just three others close to me and no gifts, and on Christmas Day I slipped gently across the 60 miles that separated me from my mother in her assisted living facility and enjoyed just being there and taking it in.
I think partly in response to this slower pace there has been a sense of openness in my heart that I have been hoping would appear if I did less and attended more to the moment.
Like the turtle in the garden, I stopped frequently, before and during the holidays, to reflect, doze, snack, stare into the distance. This spacious quality to the days hasn’t been a constant though. It has flickered in and out in the wind of excessive thinking.
Thinking and feeling in obsessive circles is, I think, endlessly seductive and building a habit of presence may be the work of a longer life than I have before me. Moving fast from thing to thing, thought to thought, seems necessary sometimes and yet is numbing. I see that the more I am able to expand thoughts and feelings into a sense of inclusiveness of other people who might be thinking and feeling things similar, the more this sense of spaciousness and peace prevails. The more compassion I feel for all of us and the less lonely I am.
It’s not easy to remember to do this, and I am not skilled at it when I do remember, but the amazing thing is that even small, unskilled movements in this direction bring a good result far in excess of our efforts.
When we expand our preoccupation with our own emotions to include a sense of the emotions of all others, who also suffer and rejoice, and when we pass on to ourselves and these others a healing peace that is beyond us but which can come through us to that place of suffering or rejoicing, we are participating in a holy magic. It is a true entry point into a transformative life. Or so I now believe. You can get to it a number of ways but first you have to slow down. Way, way down. There must be at least 100 traditions of faith that teach how to do this but in the end, the practitioner is still alone slogging it out in his own inner cyberspace.
Twice during this holiday I woke up laughing, bubbling over with an hilarity that stayed close to me all day and which, from time to time, would recur without reference to whether or not laughter was seemly in that moment. And that was funny too so it started me off again. I was seeing with fresh eyes the humor of behaviors of the day before; mv vanity driven gestures, mostly. It's been way too long since I had a great laugh at my own expense.
There are reasons for dark feelings. Everyone has reasons and, big or little reasons, they seem to fill us up. Someone near me is caught in a life threatening addiction. The suffering I glimpse on her face haunts me with the need to think and wrestle and grieve and act I-know-not-how. But I'm trying to stay slowed down and and quiet rather than flash into a well meant action that will not help. There are memories and judgments that grind like broken glass through my psyche, unresolved though I work on them every day. And there is sadness. And there is disappointment. And there is desire. We can practice with what we are given.
But in the slow pace I’ve set this holiday season there is enough silent time to entertain these difficult feelings with creativity. I wish it for everyone.
I have provided myself with a fire in the stove, good wood, a comfortable armchair and a few gentle tasks that are close to nature. There are plants to attend. Their requirements are communicated in meek silence and their gratitude for care is seen in their thriving. There is sweeping I can do or polishing, if I’m so inclined, and these tasks might be done with silent mind and open heart. As the joy of this sometimes overtakes me, again, I wish it for all people.
On Christmas Mother spoke at length about a memory she was going to record for posterity. In halting starts and silent moments of visualizing the past and making sense of it, she told a long story about her courtship by my father in their college years. It was a creative combination of things that happened in her twenties and things that happened decades later and which my sisters and I still remember, seen and remembered by her as a single event. When I found myself holding my breath, not wanting to take in this fabrication, I adjusted and breathed my way through an acceptance of the fictionalization of our lives.
Well, what I told her was true. “It’s a wonderful story, Mom. Anyone would enjoy reading it.” But what I'm now thinking is that in some way, her version may be truer than fact.
She smiled with pleasure. “Do you think so?’
“Yes,” I said, thinking ‘I’ll add it to the stories I make up about my own life. And then I'll forgive myself for being human.’
We held each other when I left, or I held on to her. I do not want to let her go. But I am. She has a destination she is slowly embracing as she creeps around, stares into space remembering her fictions, having little snacks, and I cannot go with her. She is leaving piece at a time.
As I write now it has been three hours since I woke up and still my part of the universe is hushed and pregnant with something very good.
And I still don’t know what it is. But the snow has finally begun.
I am so glad to be old enough to finally be capable of slowness. I no longer hurry for any reason but I attend more fully, I believe, to the moments as they scroll by and everything they bring with them. I try never to hold my breath to avoid taking in what is happening, though anything that can happen will happen at some point and I'm still thrown into chaos by unkindness, perfidy, fear and regret but when that happens I sometimes have the opportunity to remember that it’s the same for us all; that we all travel the same road and are endlessly meeting ourselves in each other as strangers, only to recoil or embrace and maybe learn.
In that spaciousness of discovery we can wish the happiness and forgiveness to each other that we wish for ourselves.
Joy, peace and generosity of heart to all.
