Winter Solstice Reflection | December 17, 2017
Rev. Emily Wright-Magoon
Yesterday, my 3-year-old daughter taught me a poem she learned in school:
In the heart of a seed,
Buried deep, so deep
A dear little plant
Lay fast asleep.
“Wake,” said the sunshine,
and creep to the light.
Wake said the voice of the raindrops bright.
The little plant heard and it rose to see
What the wonderful outside world might be.
– Kate Louise Brown
I love that the poem begins with the seed down deep in the ground. Sometimes we are like the people in that story who love the light and forget the gifts of the darkness.
Earth-centered traditions like paganism remind us there is a beauty and a rightness in the wheel of the year: each season and its turning.
As we approach the winter solstice, I invite us to resist the temptation, in our longing for the light, to skip over this season of quiet and darkness.
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So at this time in our service I invite you to consider the gifts this season of darkness may have for you.
Perhaps the gift is the invitation to be still – what gift might you receive were you to be still for a moment? Perhaps the gift is the invitation to rest, or to reflect? Perhaps the gift is the invitation to make room for something to take seed in you. Perhaps there is something you want to grow in you, something that needs nurturing. Perhaps the gift is the invitation to let go of something. For this season also reminds us that death must come before rebirth.
In the darkness of the soil, the husk of the seed gives way for new life to emerge. The new life is only possible if we dig deep and surrender to the gifts of the darkness.
– Rev. Emily