Merry Making in the Dark

 

We’ve just passed the winter solstice--the time of year when the rotating earth slowly begins to tilt toward the sun once again. 

But for now, it's still dark and it's still cold. And the nights are still long. 

No amount of merry-making or holiday cheer can unravel this dance between the sun and the earth--this tilting and spinning and rotating, this pulling apart and coming back together again. Still, every year the darkness takes us by surprise, and so once again we fall under the spell of winter.

What is this spell? One might say it’s SAD. Seasonal Affectiveness Disorder.

But, this sounds mighty clinical. Perhaps this sadness, this quiet time is romantic, mythical, even beautiful? Why don't we rename it as Sleeping Beauty Syndrome? After all, we know that earth will re-awaken in the spring, as she tilts toward her lover, the Sun. Imagine her wearing a white gown with stars in her hair as she joins the sun in a close embrace—twirling, spinning—in their timeless dance among the stars in the night sky.

Friends, this dance has already begun. The promise of spring is slowly growing within winter's silence. Even as we speak something new is being born under the darkness of the frozen earth—a book or a dance or a poem or a song or a painting, or an epic portrait of merry making in the darkness.

Creative Friends, enjoy the darkness while it is with you. Embrace the cold, the solitude, and the beauty that is winter. Turn inward and slowly create something magnificent. Something that surprises even you. After all, no one is looking. It’s too dark!

And then in the spring, let your creation burst forth into this world in a wild chorus of colors and a surprise celebration of light. 

Your creativity assignment for this week is to be still in the darkness, dream, and inhale the promise of your own unique imagination.

And finally, have fun.

Love,

Jamie