I was noticing there’s a bit more light now than there was just last week. The darkness is yielding to the light, just as the stars do at dawn.
This time of year, there’s often a reddish-purplish glow in the mountains at sunrise, but it only lasts a few moments. If I take too long heating up the tea, I’ll turn back, and it will be gone. I wonder if it was ever really there, that color, that glory.
It’s a reminder of how fragile it is here; how tenuous, fleeting, this opening into life. We go to make the tea and it’s gone. We turn to the world, a tree, or the deer – or to someone we love – and they’re no longer there. One day it will all be gone.
Remembering this has a way of making things more vivid and precious, a moment of wonder and awe at the opportunity that has been given here, knowing that we and everyone we know will be called away a lot sooner than we might hope.
Even in the midst of the chaos and uncertainty, of things falling apart inside and all around us, in each particle of the glistening snow, tucked away in each cry of longing in the bird outside my window, an invitation into communion. The Beloved unfolding Itself out of Itself and aching to be known.
It can seem so far away at times, as if the great vision is hidden behind a veil. But where could it go, really? Taking the time each day to slow down, to take a break from the collective trance, and listen again; feel, sense, touch, attune.
To bear witness as the veil is parted - and to step through - is the activity of love.
To somehow be crafted as a more and more transparent, translucent vessel in which love can find safe passage here is something we do not only for ourselves, but for all of life in these times; so that we can be there for others in ways beyond what we already know.
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