Birthing the Light
Bricolage
Hello, my friend!
I hope you are doing well and finding light in the darkness. I find myself quiet and contemplative at the moment as we head towards the birth of the light on the Winter Solstice tomorrow.
I love feeling my roots stretching into the dark soil and the sense of possibility that a new year brings.
The fecundity of this time of darkness is so nourishing. I can feel the sense of storing energy that will be ready to burst out in spring. It’s delicious and fills me with hope. I find myself calibrating and wondering how to navigate this strange time we find ourselves in with grace. I know that one of my chosen elders, Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, tells us we were made for these times:
“For years, we have been learning, practicing, been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement. I cannot tell you often enough that we are definitely the leaders we have been waiting for, and that we have been raised, since childhood, for this time precisely.”
~Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes
It’s true. My experiences and education have all prepared me for—*gestures wildly*—ALL OF THIS. So I keep going. I hope you will too. We need you and your many gifts.
We need each other. Sharing and caring. Pouring our sadness and anger and our JOY into our art. Giving our attention to what we can feel has goodness and integrity.
Our Lady
On one of the colder days recently, I went out to get some groceries and decided to get an altar candle from a local market. I’ve been lighting it each day and sending out love to the world, including you. :) I love Mothers and the Divine Feminine so I got this candle but, because I’m not catholic, I didn’t know that December 12th is the feast day for Our Lady of Guadalupe. Her history is fascinating but it’s how I feel when I gaze at her image in the flickering light that had me sharing it as a note here on Substack. Here it is again if you missed it.
I awaken very early in the morning and, after I’ve made coffee, light the candle in the darkness and pray while watching the flame and imagine all the mothers of the world who, like me, hold their children in their hearts during uncertain times. She makes me feel stronger and helps me carry on.
She also reminds me to relax and enjoy my children while we’re all together which is why I am writing less this week but not before I share one of my favorite poems for this time of year by Lord Alfred Tennyson, Ring Out Wild Bells:
Ring out wild bells to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.
Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.
Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.
Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.
Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.
Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.Christ the Son. Christ the Sun.
Film Recommendation
This week’s film is La Chimera from director Alice Rohrwacher. It is, perhaps, one of the most exquisite films I’ve ever experienced. It feels like both a love letter to the Italian countryside, where the director grew up, and a poetic commentary on the encroaching madness of late-stage capitalism. It’s not dogmatic or overwrought. It shows us in chromatic stratification the ancient past, the recent past and what our future could be.
Films like this are like a candle lighting the way to how we can tell stories that carry a kind of magic that feels like how it might have been when our ancestors told stories around the fire keeping us warm while sparks spiraled up into the night sky.
May you and yours be blessed beyond measure as we birth the light together, my friend.
I’ll see you next Wednesday.
All my love,
Kymberlee
PS, Think someone might dig this newsletter and want to share it? There’s a button for that! Thanks in advance. :)
PPS, Here’s a picture of Our Lady.
