Our Lady of the Solstice

Our Lady of the Solstice

At the moment
of
the
deepest dark
and,
at
the sharp point
of the
longest night,

at such distance from 

dawn
that we groan
beneath
the burden of
being,
and touch within
ourselves
only
the winds of winter
and the
wild longing
where
light
is only a memory
long lost
and left behind in
summer sun;
then we,
suddenly,
and just for
the merest of moments,
are hushed
into silence,
as the turning
of the 
ancient
wheels of wonder
stop,
and sun and stars
all,
still their divinely 

directed dance
and take their
yearly yearned for
deep remembering

rest,
like lovers suddenly 

still,
when struckby desire's reverie;
or dancers,

pulsing with passion,
awaiting the next 

beat
of beauty's music
to liberate life within.
They,
our elder siblings 

of the sky,
recall in
their
sacred stillness
that moment
when
once,

just once,
their fiery song,
sung since
first
divine kindling,
was 

paused,
hushed,
stilled,

stopped;
just 

once,
long ago,so as 

to
listen to
a new note
joined to
the
great hymn of gratitude
that all
offer
simply by their very being.

For in that 

moment
of their listening
was revealed
she who is 

our true solstice.

The Woman,

that moment of
perfect stillness
between 

divine in-breathing
and creation's
exhalation of excelsis.

So they watched,

as she who is the 

stillpoint 

of

the dance of story,

and the sanctuary

where 

myth becomes flesh,

then,

before angelic emissary,
dropped the pebble of her
yes,
in its utter simplicity,
longed for through the countless
ages of agony,
into the pool of our pain.

Behold the Solstice of the Lord…

Be it done unto me according to His Word…

Looking deep they
saw its
ripples now run to the
edges of existence
trembling them with
the promise
of a new
Spring.

And the Story became flesh…

And dwelt amongst us…

This young girl,

this Lady of light.
who is our solstice.
She,
the perfect place
of stillness,
so attuned
to the coming of the Light
that in her
all
creation stills,
the old cycle of sin
is broken
and,
even the deep dark
of despair
must yield
to glow of dawn.

She, 

the light that glows before 

the rising Sun,

heralded by Robin 

and Wren 

and fluting Blackbird,

She, like that blessed moment

when Sun and Moon 

both

hang in the deep blue together 

and bow as they pass

gentling our hearts 

and 

drawing us from dreams

to welcome
the advent of the One
who
IS
Love's Light
and eternal Word both,
spoken now into time’s renewed turning
by the Yes of one who
holds
within her heart
the perfect emptiness of Love.

Treasuring in 

the holy dark of
her womb the hearth
where Spring's spark is 

kindled
and brightens with beauty 

as a
first place of
promised Easter exhalation 

the cave of
rebirth;
in which
eternity and time
are married,
and infinity will wed itself
forever
to clay's embrace. 

Here, in this
sacred solstice place,
Eve's aching
is healed,
and
here, 

Adam's sin
undone,
as from the dry root
of the
sundering tree
a new shoot rises at the word of
one
whose whole being
is Yes
whose whole being
is
Love,

And so,
yearly
we sit,
rooting ourselves
once again
in Mother Earth's embrace,

and while looking ever upwards
we find the still point 

of the skies
and yet

inwardly gaze 

into
the light of story 

long-kindled 

against the cold of winter,
and so become

re-minded,
re-hearted,
re-souled,
by she who is our solstice,

whose self-forgetting 

Yes 

brought to us

the turning of the light

and blessed us

all
like barren trees 

brought to beauty
by a sudden

anointing 

of 

new snow.