Friday, December 18, 2015

Winter Solstice 2015

luminaria on Serpent Mound
You, Darkness

You, darkness, that I come from
I love you more than all the fires
that fence in the world,
for the fire makes a circle of light for everyone
and then no one outside learns of you.

But the darkness pulls in everything –
shapes and fires, animals and myself,
how easily it gathers them! –
powers and people –

and it is possible 
a great presence is moving near me.

I have faith in nights.

Rainer Maria Rilke




December Moon

Before going to bed
After a fall of snow
I look out on the field
Shining there in the moonlight
So calm, untouched and white
Snow silence fills my head
After I leave the window.

Hours later near dawn
When I look down again
The whole landscape has changed
The perfect surface gone
Criss-crossed and written on
Where the wild creatures ranged
While the moon rose and shone.

Why did my dog not bark?
Why did I hear no sound
There on the snow-locked ground
In the tumultuous dark?

How much can come, how much can go
When the December moon is bright,
What worlds of play we'll never know
Sleeping away the cold white night
After a fall of snow.

May Sarton




Pledge of Allegiance

I pledge allegiance to the soil
      of Turtle Island,
and to the beings who thereon dwell
      one ecosystem
      in diversity
      under the sun
With joyful interpenetration for all.

Gary Snyder



3 comments:

Unknown said...

Breathing hard and fast,
She took in the surrounding darkness
Wrapping it around herself like a long velvet cloak

Her sighs now birth Ra into an amniotic sack of stardust
Filling our celestial skies
Look up, Its happening.

Everywhere her birth is seen.
Everywhere we see Grace and Creation meeting again.... If we choose to look.

For three days and three nights,
All will nap in this soft dark loveliness
...Dedicating themselves to new dreams and an annual mystic sleep

Time for us to re-create the future
Not yet.
No children.
It's simply time to spin and dream
Dream and spin
While we ride on Ra's stardust
and Nuit finds Herself resting once again

M.Youngblood. Priory for The Noble Sword of Truth

Lauren Raine said...

Wow, that is stunning Mana! Beautiful poem, beautiful and blessed darkness from which the light is born.

Trish and Rob MacGregor said...

Happy holidays to you, Lauren!

These photos and poems are fantastic!