Visual Meditation: Crystalline Darkness, Glittering Stillness

Winter Solstice

(Two Poems by Rebecca Parker)

Perhaps
for a moment…
the wheels stop rolling,
the computers desist from computing,
and a hush will fall over the city.
For an instant, in the stillness,
the chiming of celestial spheres will be heard
as earth hangs poised
in the crystalline darkness, and then
tilts.

Let there be a season
when holiness is heard, and
the splendor of living is revealed.
Stunned to stillness by beauty
we remember who we are and why we are here.
There are inexplicable mysteries.

We are not alone.
In the universe there moves a Wild One
whose gestures alter earth’s axis
toward love.

In the immense darkness
everything spins with joy.
The cosmos enfolds us.
We are caught in a web of stars,
cradled in a swaying embrace,
rocked by the holy night,
babes of the universe.
Let this be the time
we wake to life,
like spring wakes in the moment
of winter solstice.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

At
this winter’s
turning
of the year
let us go gently
— for once –
into the night,
its dream-drenched,
glittering stillness
a haven for our souls.

There
is something
beyond the dull
brightness of mid-day,
fluorescent and buzzing.
Something to praise
beyond the sun,
triumphing over the intricacies
of shadowed moonlight.

Bring
in the old,
beautiful realm
of Holy Night,
echoing with ancient voices,
rustling with intimacy’s passion,
luminous with stars.

Cradled in darkness,
be restored to the embrace of mystery.

Glory wakes here.

Let it kindle
your joy.

____________________________

Both poems by Dr. Rebecca Parker

-All Photos by Christine Valters Paintner @ Abbey of the Arts (taken around Capitol Hill, Seattle  this morning)

(A bonus post today because of a Winter Solstice pilgrimage I took this morning following a night of heavy snow and then freezing rain.  For a reflection on the Fourth Sunday of Advent click here and to see more Winter Photos click here)