These Darkening Days

As Autumn descends, and chaos swirls in the world around me, I hunger for the dark.  As much as I love the sun, my lake swims, and warm air on bare skin, I need a good long rest, a retreat from the story.  Perhaps we all do.  Whether it be from unfathomable loss, hurricanes and earthquakes, wildfires, our EMF-laden trajectory, relationship struggles, health challenges, the threat of nuclear war– sometimes we all need a break from the story.

photo by Leigh Hilbert

Stress, adrenaline, impaired sleep, anxiety, depression, immune dysfunction, emotional reactivity, disease – which came first, our inner imbalance or the outer mess?  When we find ourselves attempting to solve the world’s problems with our minds and coming up empty, it is time to connect with essence.

photo by Leigh Hilbert

Wood fire. Starlit skies.  Owls’ song.  A cozy comforter.  Rest, my friend, and may you be enfolded in the peace that is ever present.  When we give ourselves permission to stop, unplug, and restore, we are able to move into the realm where truly all is well.  Here we may access tools that in a rested, balanced state, we can seamlessly integrate into our lives.

photo by Leigh Hilbert

As we consciously journey into these darkening days, in divine time we will surface from the depths like Persephone with the forbidden fruit, only to discover that we are the light that will return on winter solstice.  We are the light of truth and all we long for.  We are the redemptive, potent, unstoppable light of Love. 

photo by Leigh Hilbert

Retreat

© 2015 Oona McOuat

Sleep little seed, in your warm earthen bed, dreaming of what you were born to become.

Falling leaves and fading flowers; shades of ochre and brown.  Garden wisdom speaks to me as I pull out the tomato plants.  Let go, and make space for next year’s bounty. 

As the days shorten and a late October wind chases clouds across the moon, I too feel a need to make space for what I want.  

Outside the plants are slowing down, dying back, and decomposing - nourishing the soil.  Growth requires death, my garden teacher shows me.

But my grown-up life with its glowing screens can become frenetic to distraction. So often I am busy and buzzy, but getting less and less “done.”  Slowing down feels like trying to sleep under a fluorescent bulb.   The first thing I need to do is remember how to turn it off.

You see, I have a sneaking suspicion that the time I spend on digital tools – as freeing and uniting and amazing as they can be - is rewiring my circuitry.  I remember how it was at age 18 to watch the first November snowfall through an old stone window in a cafe in Quebec City – how still and purposeful and vast everything was, how immediate and present each sensation.  But if I had been brought up on a steady diet of digital devices, I am not sure I would know that silence, the perfect stillness that existed before the buzz.

Turning inwards and making space requires a reclaiming of my own innate peace patterning.  This means saying no to extraneous distractions, like a mindless use of social media, and a huge yes to all that nourishes me. Making space for what I want requires resetting my nervous system and reconnecting to my heart. 

Snugly, cozy, fire, and book.  Pumpkin soup, a forest walk, misty lake canoeing.  Writing and dancing and laughing and loving, and being, just being.  Giving my very best gifts to the very best world I know, believing that we can awaken from our dormancy, our self-induced sleep, to become a balanced, vibrant haven of wonder and delight.

A Mute Swan overwintering at Fulford Harbour, Salt Spring Island - photo by Leigh Hilbert

Sleep little seed, in your warm earthen bed, dreaming of what you were born to become.