The translucent slant ways light of November has ebbed and what is left is an ever thickening blanket of cloud cover. It feels the all powerful sun has indeed packed its bags and left us in the gloom. It is the time of the Cailleach - the Celtic Queen of Winter, who is known to blanket the world with her shroud of essential silence and darkness.
The encroaching dark makes the precious light, of stars, lit candles and fires brighter, more holy. The darkness give meaning to light...and humans we do love to make meaning! For 20,000 years, a universe of stories about the dark and its rebirth have been carried, by indigenous peoples and village folk the world over, and told 'round hearth fires at this time of year. Stories eagerly awaited and taken into the harbor of willing ears. Stories from the Haida people of raven stealing back the sun, from eastern Europe of Solntse as a maiden doning her raiment of light, from Greco-Roman mythology of Old Baubo's dance with Demeter coaxing Helios closer and calling powerful Persephone up from her dark under-land home. Then of course the stories of the lit lamp shining for eight nights instead of one, and the singular dazzling star and the birth of the child of light. All stories of the miraculous. However you relate and celebrate this time of the year, may you give yourself the gift of slowing down, of resting into the sweet darkness and opening to the miraculous. Every blessing and deep peace to you, Tracy Courses, Concerts & a Winter Storytelling Series:
Women of Soul. Women of Spirit - A luscious series of 3 wisdom courses exploring the depths of the mythic feminine, specifically the energies of power, intuition and voice. All the courses are virtual-live, inquiry based and experiential through sacred storytelling, somatic practices and communion with the natural (wild, more than human) world. Open to those identifying as women/femme.
The Time of The Cailleach -
Sunday January 24th 12:30-3pm cst All Here Dwell Free - Sundays; February 21, 28 & March 7 - 12:30-2pm cst Drinking Down the Moon - Sunday April 4th - 12:30-3pm cst * * * * * * The Shifting of Shape - A virtual Winter Concert with master piper Tim Britton & Tracy Chipman - Sunday January 31st - 7pm. More coming soon. * * * * * * Weaving from the Fringes Winter Storytelling Series - Three events, 12 tellers (4 each evening) exploring the transformative powers of storytelling. All concerts start at 7pm. More info coming soon. Mark your calendars! January 23rd - Shine February 27th - Flow March 27th - Grow * * * * * * Sweet Darkness When your eyes are tired the world is tired also. When your vision has gone no part of the world can find you. Time to go into the dark where the night has eyes to recognize its own. There you can be sure you are not beyond love. The dark will be your womb tonight. The night will give you a horizon further than you can see. You must learn one thing: the world was made to be free in. Give up all the other worlds except the one to which you belong. Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet confinement of your aloneness to learn anything or anyone that does not bring you alive is too small for you. ~ David Whyte ~