There are times when it's wise to shield yourself from the brilliance of the sun and sequester the thinking self that seeks always to shine the light of rational sense-making, however inappropriate, on the sweet arc of being.
So hide, dive in. Be.
It's hard to be quiet. It's hard to be still.
Nothing happens. And everything is.
Inside this hollow place I feel the hollow place around me shrink to fit the inner contours of the tree. Instead of spreading my emptiness widely, my solitude's confined in a smaller space.
And just perhaps I can take this sense out there, into the world of other-than-human beings.
Out there, I see something stranger. And a different understanding dawns. Another story of being that I need to sense in my soul.
A different way to think of aging and of dying.
At first, I see weakness, the breaks and the loss. Then the valiant struggle to live on, despite it all, despite the pain and the suffering.
But that's the wrong way to go about it.
The tree both grows down, back into the source of its strength, and, also, mysteriously, magically, holds up not a reminder of lost glories or a yearning for lost youth, but a beacon. See this as the spirit calling, the tree's spirit summoning the sun.
It's wisdom that brings understanding. When instead of all the reaching out for self, all the expanding of being to colonise space, all the seeking and the collecting, we sink into the smaller self we need and call the wild light to guide us.
Wishing you a Happy Solstice xx