First, I must apologise for not having sent a reminder this week about today's Celebration of Life. I will attempt to remember next time, but if you want the date for your diaries it is 12th December, back in the usual room.
Today's theme was the Dark Night of The Soul. Moving into the depths of winter is a difficult time, associated with death and darkness, marked in various traditions as Samhain, All Souls Day, Day of the Dead, and today is also Remembrance Day. But we were called on to remember that these dark times can be rich in experience and growth, and that the dark is needed in order to emerge into the light.
Neesa began with an invocation to Kali, Hindu goddess of Death, and led us in a body prayer to Kali.
Then we sang "Be still and know that day and night, be still and know that dark and light are one holy circle".
Peter read one of his poems:
Waiting for Winter
There is a channel in time opening before me
And my life flows into it like a river.
Beyond any journey that my thoughts make
There is a territory waiting,
Like a parent, for me to become myself.
The future is a channel in time opening before me
And my life flows into it like a river.
There are gifts there not ready for the taking,
Fruits not grown.
The future is still in the roots,
In the earth waiting for winter,
Waiting for the hard, cold winds to drive me down
Waiting for life to take me down,
For trouble to pull me down
Into my underground self,
To meet the solid darkness
So there can be a spring.
My life is always one season or another
One kind of growth, or preparation for growth, after another;
Each one is a new world;
And each one involves dying:
The dying of a heart too tight,
The dying of a mind gone blind,
The dying of a purpose outgrown,
The dying of a self too small,
The dying of a summer whose life is over.
And every time I'm still afraid of dying.
Then I led an activity on doubts, fears and affirmations. We curled up with our doubts and fears while I read a poem by Edwin Muir, "Ballad of the Soul". Then everyone found affirmations for themselves to help overcome their doubts and fears; "I am confident", "I am becoming", "I have faith", "The only reality is Love", thinking these to themself as they uncurled from around their doubts and fears, stood and took hands in a circle. People spoke out their affirmations, and then we sang Amazing Grace.
Then we lit candles in a circle, and Neesa led us in a dance while we sang "Hecate, Ceridwyn, Dark Mother take us in; Hecate, Ceridwyn, let us be reborn".
Rob and Jehanne sang "Stop the world, I want to get on" and "Autumn to Winter", then we finished by standing around the centre and singing "This little light of mine".
