It’s drizzling this Solstice morning, a constant leak from the low hanging clouds. I awoke this morning to no celebratory sunrise, but rather to the drip of another Sunday morning, the brilliant moss covered trees feeding from the sky. And while it has been some days since I have seen the sun, I am aware that this day is a sacred one in which we begin our steady march back into the days of longer light. It is slow to come, I know this. It seems more as if we are just now making our nests in the heart of this dark winter, preparing our bodies for the long nights. But that is the thing about movement, about the rhythms of nature; sometimes it is so gradual that you cannot even feel it happening. The long breath of the universe, in and out.
It is the expansion and contraction that is at the core of each of us. The inward curling and the outward reaching, the flexion and extension, the in breath and the out, the systolic and diastolic, the curling and uncurling of our hearts and the way in which this movement pulses through our bodies. And at the turning point in each, there is a pause. A moment of holding the breath before an exhale, the rest before the contraction, the gathering of potency before the uncurling. It is both where we gather our strength and where we rest our bones.
And so this day, as we turn back toward the light, I am feeling the pause. Resting into this moment, one foot in darkness and the other in light. The moment contains both the deepest rest and the most vibrant awakeness. It is an awareness of what has been and what is to come, it is pregnant with mourning and anticipation, relief and trepidation, certainty and uncertainty. It is the moment between moments. The embodiment of possibility.
At the core of the pause rests one simple idea: hope. Hope that the in-breath will come, hope that the light will return, hope for rest, hope for inspiration, hope that anything is possible next. It is that moment between moments when all we have is hope.
And so on this day, when we turn back toward the light, I invite you to offer gratitude for the dark, for the struggles and challenges and heartbreaks that have littered your path, knowing that despite the turning point there will surely be more darkness to come. But just as likely is the possibility for light to come, for goodness and ease and celebration. The ever-present expansion and contraction of our existence. But today, today I will meet you there in the pause. And in that moment between moments, we will rest in hope.
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