17th Dec 2005
Preparing for the Solstice….
This Wednesday is the shortest day of the year and the longest night of the year, the Winter Solstice.
Starhawk reflects on grief and renewal at the Solstice and what she’ll be doing this Solstice.
The Solstice has much to teach us about grief. At Solstice, we descend into the dark. We can allow ourselves to face those emotions and impulses we generally keep hidden. We can feel the pain and touch the depths, for we know that the time will soon come to rise again, that darkness is always followed by increasing light. Solstice teaches us that everything is a cycle, a dynamic process, and no end is ever final.
Grief can lead us to create other losses. We put aside the pain of our lost friend, and then forget where we parked the car and spend hours in frantic searching. We hold ourselves together when we receive the layoff notice, and then cannot find our wallet, or become distraught over a forgotten bag of groceries.
Grief takes time. A life loss is not something we recover from in a day, or a week. A major loss will throw us into at least a year of acute mourning, for we must experience an entire cycle, every holiday and marked date, without the loved one, and grief afresh.
This is great. Thanks for it.
I guess her mom wrote one of the big texts about grief. She really seemed to have some insight.