Darkness at Midwinter: A Love Letter
The dark, early morning of midwinter draws me from my cozy slumber, my orange cat curled up on the pillow beside me; we nuzzle our heads and snuggle and I breathe in the sweet fragrance of his fur. Nearly always, I wake to a silent house. It is a precious gift. The only sound is the creak of the floorboards beneath my bare feet as I make my way to the kitchen and turn on the dim yellow light above the stove that provides a glow that feels as sacred as a candle lit on a cold, dark morning by my ancestors, who knew what winter really was. I’m trying to remember. The medicine of winter: slowness and rest.
Winter is for listening and tending, I’ve learned. To barrel through it like a bull to a cape- though I’ve heard that behavior is learned, as is ours, I suppose- would be to squash the sacred softness that calls us to curl into its arms and rest. Ah yes, rest. Winter. I drink in its silence like a bee draws nectar from a flower, sucking, drawing, sucking, knowing I might drown in it but going deeper and deeper still. Deeper to where, you might ask? Darkness. Sweet, singing Darkness.
If you know not what I speak of, then you have not met Mother Darkness in all she has to offer. For she holds all secrets to Life. She is always there, but her presence is especially strong in winter. If we would just turn away from the lights prying at us from the outside and turn in, she is there, waiting as patiently as a sleeping bear tucked deep within her den. You might miss her if you aren’t looking, if you aren’t willing. She doesn’t care. For she is there to nourish those who tend the hearth of their own sacred flame.
Standing barefoot in my kitchen, I sigh a deep breath out, then drink in this precious, sacred aloneness that folds around me like a warm glove. It’s a kind of quiet I can feel myself in and feel myself in. Yes, I feel my prayers and my essence tucked into every corner and woven into the invisible fabric of every room, wrapping me in my own magic. And it is magic to be here, alone with myself.
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2024 was a big year (maybe every year is), but this year has been especially expansive, busy and challenging. I pushed a lot forward this year and I have done the majority of it alone. I’ve found myself, at various points this past year year, lamenting (or at an extreme, breaking down in tears) at the immensity of running one’s life as a single person. )I will add here that I am a highly sensitive person with neuro-divergent challenges and get overwhelmed easily.) I’m not glorifying partnership, as I have much experience and know that it has as many challenges as single life. I recognize that wherever you find yourself in life, it can and will be hard. I digress. As 2024 closed, I found myself in deep gratitude for my single life and for the space I have carved out for my creativity, solitude and prayer. This post is a love letter to my single life and to this season of darkness, where I feel wrapped in a blanket of savory, velvety magic. It’s a post more for me than anyone else, but if you find yourself here, reading, I hope it draws you in like a crackling fire in a cozy cabin and reminds you of the sacred beauty in your own life.
There’s something about the winter time and darkness that feels especially magical to me. I am a summer witch, without a doubt. I love the sun and warmth and being barefoot in my garden, frolicking about. And yet, when the freezing temps and icy sidewalks push me inside, I find the dark, candlelit sanctuary of my home a fertile ground for reflection, creativity and magic. There is nothing like waking up to the stillness and settling into the dim candlelight of my homemade beeswax candles.
In winter, the fragrance of prayer is thick in the pre-dawn and post-dusk liminal periods of the day in my home. It is here that I most potently feel the pull to listen. That is one of the Darkness’s most precious (perhaps most overlooked) gifts, the atmosphere it engenders to listen. It is in this sacred listening that I have uncovered so much about myself and the universe in the past three winters, where I’ve been alone. In the dark quiet of winter I have learned to journey to other realms, see and feel how energy works in the body; it’s where I have met many, if not most, of my helping spirits. In the darkness, at my altar, is where I first learned to sing, to the plants, their songs rolling through me like a summer storm, unexpected, thrilling and wondrous. In this darkness I have grown; I have healed. In the quiet sitting, waiting and listening, where it seems nothing much is happening, so much in fact is being seeded.
It is here, in the dark days of deep winter, that I remember the velvety richness of the winter night and all that it calls me to tend. There at my altar, small candles burning, incense smoke coiling like dancing serpents, I sit. I breathe. I open to the sounds hidden in the dark, for there are many if you know how to listen. To hear what lives in the dark, we must tune not just our physical eyes and ears, but our inner, intuitive ones. This kind of intuitive listening is essential for the work I do in my Energy Healing sessions. The Darkness is my teacher. She is like a cloak that keeps the noise of the outside world beyond me. I let it close me off from everyone else’s voices so I can hear my own. I let the Darkness draw me inward like a wave rolling back into itself, back into myself.
