Soul-full

By Pam Hadder

We are in that mysterious twilight time in the Canadian north - near the cusp of the winter solstice, we witness the slow degradation of day light, replaced by a familiar half-dream time that nestles between now and then.  My body responds by demanding more sleep, a slower pace, intermittent bursts of citrus-bright colour, and/or more caffeine. Canadians frequently joke about hibernation, but modern demands for working folks push toward the opposite: we fight the natural rhythms of the human body to slow down in winter.  And so my conflicted heart waxes toward the heavens, surveys the subtleties of colour, and gravitates inward to float in the dream-time place, soothed and sustained by the compelling poetry of words and sound.

I am always excited for the winter solstice – it brings us closer to the season of lights, Christmas, Kwanzaa and other holiday experiences that reinforce togetherness, cultural resilience and appreciation of our place within this living miracle. But more than this, the solstice means we are one day closer to spring!  By the end of January, the days are noticeably longer, and I feel a surge of anticipatory energy.  It is always this time of year that I receive my focus or mantra for the year ahead.  Most of the time, it just comes to me and I know immediately that it is true and meaningful.

This year is different – the interference from without seems larger,  and my personal insights are more soft-focus, nebulous, and  yet imposing like a great, old tree that I can’t quite wrap my arms around no matter how hard I try!  I feel like the messages are there, but I am not quite connecting.  My sleeping dreams have been varied and bizarre – no help there!  A few nights past I dreamed of incredible Hanukkah/Holocaust themed installations in a gallery.  An ash-grey room sparkled with fine glitter like ground marcasite, and here and there were bright jewel bits on the walls – looking closer I saw the bas-relief of Jewish family life.  It was both eerie and beautiful – it spoke to me of the survival of beauty, family and tradition amid great evil and opposition.  Another night I dreamed of wildly challenging outdoor escapades with my dearest friend, waking exhausted and questioning, “What was THAT about?” And on another occasion I was engrossed in mundane filing, sorting and admin work – a little too “widget factory” to relate to my working reality, and therefore simply crazy!  I imagine my brain doing a disk clean up and file dump – like “clean out the fridge” suppers I have been known to make for my children; it’s just doing what it can with what it has on hand!

And so I wait, expectant, hopeful, humble – maybe my mantra is merely to question or to dream?