Winter Solstice Blessings

Winter Solstice Blessings By Tomas Pinkson, Shaman

Hola Relatives - This morning I greeted Father Sun’s arrival as it first appeared over the horizon welcoming in the light of this shortest day of the year, the longest darkness of night, welcoming in its transformational power that reminds me of how light cuts through darkness filling my being with more of the light-essence that i am. Truly my body is made of starlight and my life fueled by starlight.

Yet todays world holds so much darkness, despair, depression, fear, pressure and anger. It is easy to be seduced into feeling powerless, mired in passivity of a bad dream with nothing to see but the negative, stuck in the darkness- 
What to do? How to respond?

The solstice ceremonies and all the holy day remembrances of December are all based upon a foundation of hope - hope that the sun with its life-giving warmth will return, that love can replace hate, that peace, justice and a healthy world for all can come into being. Hope is strengthened when we remember that there is a spark of light, of divinity, within us all through grace - a piece of the creating, activating wisdom energy of the universe, but it needs to be fanned, it needs skillful cultivating attention to expand into full brightness

Cultivation skills include accepting the truth of what is triggered by events in your life and the world that trigger fear, depression, etc. but don’t stop there for they are but tests of our spiritual curriculum on a collective human rite of passage, part of the Great Turning through which we are all being called to show up as conscious agents of evolution. The real issue is not what we are feeling or thinking but instead, how can we respond to them in a way that grows us in the direction we want to grow - more fear, more violence, more darkness, or, more love, peace, social, economic and environmental justice and sanity? Its all about relationship and how we can use what is triggered to help us wake up to the truth of who and what we are and the truth of how we are all interconnected - that on the deepest level we are all related.

On our most basic level of existence we are all electromagnetic fields of light enmeshed in an infinite field in which all is connected, all is One, vibrating into the larger field based on our thoughts and feelings of the moment. We are called by evolutionary pressures to work towards creating a critical mass of energy for a paradigm shift from the illusionary perception of separation into a more accurate perception of reality reflecting the truth of our essential interconnectedness recognizing that the essence of our being is love (it has been said that God is love and those who love know God) which is forgiving, taking us from a fear-based world to a world based in love.

Each breath freely given by Grace asks us the question - “How do you want to use me, to create more pain and suffering or to open awareness to love’s presence?”

Yetzer hara and yetzer hatov? (terms from the mystical Mussar tradition based on Kabbala wisdom)

Give power to the inner adversary who pulls you off the path of what you know is right-relationship, or give the power of your attention to the inner guidance that takes on the path of hana pono, making right, doing what is right?

Whatever change you want to see in the world has to start right at home within your self and then flow outward in thought and deed.

Empowered by the return-light bolstering hope may we carry our hearts through this world like a life-giving sun, shining so bright, on each and every one. Since it’s all about relationship, the web we weave so fine and the light we have to shine, right now, in this holy moment, all we ever really have, i am --

Sending you light to heal you and hold you. Sending you light, to hold you in love. I’m sending you light to guide your way home. Love is the answer, love is the key. Love is the healer, let love flow through me. Let love flow through thee. Let love flow -Ya-Wee! *

*Ya-wee is a Pomo/Miwok word from the indigenous people of Marin County in Northern California for “thank you”.

SOLSTICE BLESSINGS FOR YOUR LIFE.