Today is Winter Solstice here in the Northern Hemisphere. The sun, which has been moving further and further south for the last six months, appears to pause its journey — seeming to stand still before turning northward once again. Over the millennia, the Winter Solstice has been almost universally considered a sacred time in human cultures, promising the continuation and renewal of light and of life.
I always feel the Winter Solstice viscerally, as if my long ago ancestors were waking in my bones — a potent time of turning, of beginning again. But this year, even as I celebrate the returning light, I see us collectively moving deeper in a darkness of our own making. The dissonance feels like an insoluble koan in which I must rest, from which I must somehow make meaning.
I know, as Padraig O Tuama has written, “You will find meaning where you give meaning. The answer is in a story and the story isn’t finished.”
Do we see ourselves merely as characters in someone else’s Story? Or are we ourselves the ones telling the Story? Either way, the Story takes on a life of its own.
The Nigerian-British writer Ben Okri speaks much about the power of story for good and for ill & I’ve quoted him often here over the years. Here are some fragments from his little book Birds of Heaven which speak to our times:
"Stories can be either bacteria or light:
they can infect a system, or illuminate a world."
"To poison a nation, poison its stories. ....
Beware of the story-telllers who are ...irresponsible in the application of their art: they could unwittingly help along the psychic destruction
of their people."
At the moment, we seem to be suffering from a pandemic of cruel stories and outright lies. Where is the medicine we need? It lies in the stories that illuminate and heal rather than hide and destroy. It is vital that we tell and retell those stories.
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Here is a story that has been very present to me for the last few months. Certainly the actions in the tale spoke to me strongly as, for week upon week, I wove and un-wove and re-wove and un-wove the tapestry for Faces of the Forest . But, deeper than that, the story is telling me something I need to know about the dark times we are in. Whatever the reason, the story holds me in its fierce embrace & asks that I share it with you.
I first encountered it as told, with a Celtic flavor, by Sharon Blackie . I met it again in November, in Michael Meade’s book Why the World Doesn’t End, and then, if I remember right, most recently in a posting by Sharon Blackie, who mentioned that the story originated with the Lakota people.
I give my deepest gratitude to the Lakota tellers who first opened themselves to the story and whose breath and spirit called it into being. And I give thanks to all the storytellers who have, in their own ways, generously lent their breath and spirits to keep the story alive through the years
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Somewhere, just at the edge of the place where you dwell — whether prairie or forest, farm or city, mountain or coast — there is a cave, a cave so well hidden that those who have searched have never found it. And in the cave, two beings dwell in harmony. One is a very old woman, so old that even she doesn’t know how or where she came into being. Her face is beautiful, carved and darkened by the flow of time. And with her there lives a large black dog. He, too, is old beyond knowing. He has always been with her, and she with him
The cave is sparsely furnished. There is only room for a large loom and a fire pit encircled with stones. In the pit, a fire burns, and the fire too is so old that even the old woman doesn’t know who first kindled its flames. Over the pit hangs a large clay pot filled with a stew of berries and herbs and seeds and roots and water from an ancient spring — a delicious soup that simmers and bubbles gently, its sweet aroma drifting now and then out of the cave to touch the lands and waters beyond.
All day and all night the old woman stands at her loom weaving and weaving, making the most beautiful garment of yarns thick and thin, a tapestry of such colors and skill as have never before been seen. As she weaves, the old dog dozes and the soup simmers and the garment grows.
Every now and then, the soup begins to burble and gurgle with such loud energy that it catches the ear of the old woman and wakes the dog. Slowly the old woman turns from her loom and hobbles towards the fire. With a long-handled spoon of horn, she stirs and stirs the soup, making sure it doesn’t burn.
The old black dog watches the old woman as she moves across the cave, and that old dog stands up and walks over to the loom. Quickly he bites and pulls and rips and tears the garment from its loom, then returns quietly to his place.
When the old woman finishes her stirring, she returns to find the loom empty and a heap of shredded and raveled yarns tossed upon the floor of the cave. I don’t know if she sighs but I know she is curious, for she bends down and looks and looks at the chaos of tangled textures and hues. Finally one thread catches her attention, calls to her hands. Smiling, she picks it up and begins to weave a new garment. It is a tapestry shimmering with skill and magic, perhaps even more beautiful than the last. And so she weaves and weaves, always listening to the song of the soup; and when it is time, she turns to stir.
I don’t know if this is exactly how it happens, but I know that it is true.
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Ben Okri says, “In bad stories words cancel themselves out, and nothing is left. The words return to the source; they desert the page; only meaningless marks are left behind. …. Stories are always a form of resistance. …. The true story-teller suffers the chaos and the madness, the nightmare — resolves it all, sees it clearly, and guides you surely through the fragmentation and the shifting world.”
Let us resolve to tell only good stories, stories that, like the returning sun, illuminate and enliven.
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And please forgive me for posting yet again, my old, old poem. It is, as always, my prayer for the Winter Solstice — perhaps now more than ever.
Turning
Now the earth slides faster down
the long dark days towards Solstice.
We’ve been flung
almost too far from the center,
skidding violently along
the curve of space.
The pace
presses me flat against the rocks,
among the dried debris of summer.
Blackberry canes snarl my hair;
faded petals or leaves,
compressed beyond recognition,
cling to my lips and eyes.
Oh, it’s a long slide
down to the Solstice.
But we
shall be
tugged sunward at last on gravity’s leash:
a cosmic
crack-the-whip.
We’ll hit the corner flying
and careen round into who knows
what great wind of passage.
Even I
may be blown clear out of this cave, clean
onto my feet.
Lifting my arms to
layer upon layer of translucent
color cupped to Earth’s curve,
I’ll feel the thrust of the planet
beneath my feet.
Gulping air straight
from Arctic floes,
I’ll raise my face to
the icy stab of Orion’s sword and
roar
for joy.
— MCK
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