The Quiet Invitation of Winter and Soul

Snow. The word magically drops me into the sacred and cavernous space in my heart and brings illumination and awakens delight. It is white, pure, and it glistens in the sunlight and the moon light. Too many sparkles to count. This labyrinth drew my attention as we happened upon it whilst walking in the woods. Walking a labyrinth always invites inner exploration into my center of being.

Snow answers the ancient call of my heart for I have the heart of a child. The echo to play and to lie down in the snow and make snow angels is true. Memories flood of sledding, skating, and tasting the snowflakes with my tongue as the little, tiny, unique gifts fall freely from the heavens. Snow has the incredible ability to soften the day as it magically transforms the landscape into a pure, white, soft, and quiet sanctuary. Can you feel the hush? I can.

The snow has been lightly dusting the walks, steps, driveway, patio and deck daily for over a week. Rick and I venture out together to "scoop" (an old term my mother used to say) the snow, removing it from the surfaces where we and others walk and drive.

The immediacy of the cold temperatures touch my skin awake and the quiet resonance that snow brings, stirs a quiet depth inside. Perhaps it is a remembering of the day I was born. My mother walked through a snow storm that turned to ice the few blocks from their home to the hospital, in the small town on the western edge of Iowa where I came to be.

On the day of my birth, nearly 65 years ago, it was also during a total solar eclipse. I came into this world as a tiny infant weighing in at 4 pounds and 15 ounces to transform the lineage through this powerful celestial event and cosmic destiny.

The veil between worlds is thin during an eclipse and it shifts the consciousness of humanity and overall energy of the places in which we dwell. Some cultures believe as the moon passes between the earth and the sun, blocking out all sunlight, opens a portal for spiritual transformation. I am an Aquarian who loves humanity and was born with the longing for a spiritual and peaceful existence.

Being born during an ice storm brought clarity, perception, and the loud world was softened by the snow. Ice covers everything in sharp clean lines where nothing is blurred or hidden...all is revealed. After all, what is ice? It is water (emotions) revealed. Ice and snow storms make life slow waaaaaay down and nature begs us to pause, observe, and proceed mindfully present.

I was also born during a total solar eclipse. Where the moon passes between the earth and the sun, temporarily blocking the light of the sun. Which metaphorically has been seen as "light" emerging from "occlusion" (the eclipse's shadow). Shadows have the ability to reveal truth when the light is rearranged. The unseen and the seen switch places.

Children born during an eclipse, as I was, understand both sides of the coin with perception and intuition leading the way as being able to see and hold the truth of opposites...beauty and sorrow, fulfillment and longing, power and fragility, illumination and shadow.

The depth holds both sides and it does not frighten me. I crossed the threshold at birth as I entered through this cosmic doorway destined to be a transformer in a soft, quiet, holding space and sacred presence kind of way. I am not here to continue the old story, but to begin a new one. My mother never knew she was raising a spiritual leader who is a mystic who writes what I hear, a beacon of quiet clarity, a soul who remembers everything and a woman whose presence hopefully soothes the edges of life.

I was born wrapped in light, shadow, and mystery. My life was meant to be soft, quiet, and deep...not loud. I can hold the light gently and transform the shadows with compassion.

My life is about awakening and no longer hiding or running from my depth of sensitivity and clarity. Touching that sensitivity through writing and softly speaking about truth and using my ability for calling in the light and the shadow to transform.

I will not be attempting to fix others, but I can hold a place of clarity with gentleness that helps others feel the truth for themselves without me collapsing into their pain and overwhelming me. This is a discerning and welcoming shift in my spiritual maturity sprinkled with an unshakable knowing of who I am becoming. I ask nothing of you except to be who you are.

I am embracing my grandmother wisdom and healing my lineage one day at a time. By ending the silence and stopping the generational over-responsibility. Letting go of guilt, shame, blame. No more dimming my radiance in order to survive or folding my gifts inward. Hear me. See me. Know me.

I hear the voices of my ancestors and grandmothers' prayers still being said. Slowly awakening echoes. Like the call of the loon across a Minnesota lake at dawn or twilight, eerie, clear, ancient, and mystical. A sound that doesn't haunt me, but awakens something truly deep in my marrow. A remembering of who I am and where I came from.

My Soul is calling me not from the outside, but from a part of me that has been under deep waters. Waiting for the precise moment I was ready to emerge and come up for air across time and space. Like how the loon travels far under the water and emerges across the lake.

"I return

to the quiet light

that remembers me

without effort

and

I let the deeper truth

rise."