Marking the Solstice

Dec 21, 2009

The shortest day, the longest night.
I let go of the darkness and turn again to the light.

Tonight I look into my own darkness, mark its depth. “Be not afraid,” the angel of my inner-self whispers. I have been afraid. Afraid of bullies in the workplace, afraid of too many others’ opinions, afraid of letting go.

The darkest nights are cold and long, but often with the best views of the vast emptiness. Fear threatens emptiness, but it is not emptiness that I dread. Emptiness is a fertile bed, resting in winter, preparing for the spring planting of conscious choice.

I hold a spirit of thankfulness tonight for the emptiness. I am thankful for the courage to let go of what I really fear. I express gratitude for the creation of space. As I turn toward the light, I will watch the color rise across an open chamber.

--Stephanie, for the Poplar Grove Muse

Passing the Baton, er, Pen

I guess you could say my youngest is a charter member of Young Women Writing for (a) Change. She has been to every class or sampler yet offered. She loves the program, she reveres it, she truly “gets” what is being explored at a deeper level below the surface. She even gets the upper and lower case, and parentheses, right in the acronym for the organization….

After her very first sampler class, she came home, and wanted to host her own “sampler” class. (At that point, I think she thought “sampler” meant something like “writing,” an adjective modifying “class.”) She wanted to find a perfect vessel to hold soul cards and another to shelter a candle. She gathered a few friends together, and they wrote and talked and laughed (she has since learned not to invite the gigglier among her friends, having an innate sense of which friends are capable of sharing her reverence for this process, and which are not).

Last week, she wrote this for her weekly class school newsletter:

Young Women Writing for (a) Change
By Anna
I love to write. The words just flow out of my pencil onto the paper. And now, I have discovered a place where I can write with other people who like to do it. We do crafts and write and talk and eat snack! It’s really fun and that place is called Young Women Writing for (a) Change in the Poplar Grove Schoolhouse. It is run by supporting women from the women’s class called Women Writing for (a) Change. It’s great to be there with people who enjoy the same things as you and support you and your writing. I love to go there and just let the creative juices flow. Pick up your pen and choose a prompt or write whatever you want. Is there a mysterious door hollowed out in a tree yet to be discovered? Where do you come from? And let your inner self lie down in a creek and be covered by the cool and refreshing water that is writing. Bathe in it, bask in it. Be it.

I am so grateful to Beth, and now Kim and Greta, for creating this space (space in so many varied senses) for me to seek my voice, and now, for my daughter to do the same. Mary for the Poplar Grove Muse