Below is the email I sent out last evening to the women who participated in last June’s “Living and Leading with Heart” weekend retreat. I share with you and extend the same well wishes and Winter Solstice blessings.
As we move into these holy days that celebrate both the deep winter darkness and the promised return of the light, it is heartening to draw solace from the blessings inner and outer that these times bring.
Below is my favourite Winter Solstice poem by David Whyte called “Sweet Darkness.” May it remind you of the gifts found in darkness, and your own beauty, wisdom, and truth.
When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.
When your vision has gone
no part of the world can find you.
Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.
There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.
The dark will be your womb
tonight.
The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.
You must learn one thing:
the world was made to be free in.
Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.
Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn
anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you.
Wishing you deep peace, heartful joy, a body brimming with light and vitality, and love given and received.
Katharine
PS: I’ll be co-hosting our 2nd annual “Living and Leading with Heart” women’s retreat May 25-27, 2012. Details will be posted under EVENTS in the new year. We’d love to have you join us.
By the way, I love your photos!
Thank you…blogging has been a terrific form of self expression and connection to creativity.
Merry Christmas my friend, I know you are not with family this year, but NEXT year, you will be. We are only with some of our family, but are connected via the universe with all the rest. Reconnecting with you has been a wonderful blessing for me. We all sleep under the same moon. MERRY CHRISTMAS KATHY AND HUSBAND.
Thank you so much, Terri. Yes, our connection, after so many years has been a blessing for me, too. To discover our kindredness in what attracts, evokes…in how we respond…I have enjoyed this. I smile with remembering when you first wrote to me “we all sleep under the same moon.” Blessings and Merry Christmas to you, and yours, Terri.