“You darkness, that I come from,

I love you more than all the fires

that fence in the world,

for the fire makes

a circle of light for everyone,

and then no one outside learns of you.

But the darkness pulls in everything:

Shapes and fires, animals and myself,

How easily it gathers them!-

Powers and people-

And it is possible a great energy

Is moving near me.

I have faith in nights.”

– Rilke, trans.  Robert Bly

Today is the shortest day of the year, and the longest night.  These three days when the sun seems to stand still are days for reflection.  A time to listen for inner wisdom.  A pause to imagine, to make images, to make magic, as we seed the future world we want to live in, a world in which it will be easier to love.

In the turning of the wheel of life, as the days begin to grow longer, the light stronger, we welcome and celebrate the dawn of a new consciousness.  The light that is returning this year is the resurgence of the sacred Feminine, for a rebalancing of masculine and feminine in our culture, and worldwide.  We have been in a long period of turbulence, of chaos.  But from an understanding of new science that corresponds to spiritual teachings, out of darkness and chaos emerges new life, a new consciousness, a new order.  Creativity unfolds.  We too, both unfold into new life and are co-creators in this envisioning, this manifesting.

At this time in history, the end of a twenty-six thousand year cycle, according to the Mayan calendar, we begin anew.  It is the women who must lead the evolution of consciousness, the healing of our fragmented selves, mirrored in a fragmented world.

There is a new way of being.  A new story of self that emerges from the lived experience of women around the world.  And from the emergence of the dynamic, transformative, Divine Feminine returning to the world from the collective unconscious, from the dark mysterious womb space where news ideas are born.  Images made.  Creative solutions found.  This is the time to open to the possibilities you carry in every cell of your body.  The possibility of birthing a new you, a new world.

Joseph Campbell said at the end of his life that we need a new planetary mythology, one based on the crisis and conditions of our times.  The time is now.  The urgency we feel is mirrored in the prophecies from  indigenous wisdom keepers.  We feel it in the collective energy gathering for “Birth 2012.”  There are many new possibilities that arise from the fundamental truth that we are all connected, we are interdependent, part of each other, part of nature, part of the Divine.  And we are learning, again and newly, that our thoughts, intentions, beliefs and holy desires co-create the world we live in.  We are all storytellers.  We participate at every moment in supporting or challenging the existing myths of women’s place in the world.  We can no longer live with the old stories.  The world needs our transformational stories, voice, dreams, leadership.  What is our dream for the world we want to live in?  Every being has a song, a spark of the divine fire, holy desires which can serve the world.

It is critically important at this time for women to own their wisdom and power and bring them onto the biggest stage possible.  After the Winter Solstice, we make our plans for creative acts, finding courage, confidence and community to express our feminine power and visions through the collective heart.

We must address and dispel our fears and misconceptions of feminine power so that we may express and act with our power, our authority, our wisdom, to transform the world.  Whatever your medicine is, this is the time to offer it.

Tend your inner fire.

Be on fire with your love of the world.

I ask you, dear reader: What is ending in you?

What do you have inside you are ready to let go of?

What is the seed, the spark, that you will carry into the New Year, the fire of your wisdom, power, and love?