The Time of the Long Shadows

As we approach the Winter Solstice here in the Western Hemisphere, the vibrant life giving force of the Sun is so clearly waning. Our souls know it. Our bodies feel it.

This year more than ever before, I am yearning for the warmth and light of a bright new season.

This fall has been hard. Full of shadows and conflict, rising hate and collapsing hope. I long for happier times, as do so many.

I am tired of politics. I am tired of conflict. I am tired of feeling that this human drama is taking another wrong turn.

Yet, in the time of long shadows, we stop denying the darkness that has always been here. In these trying times, the distance between the ideals we hold and what is unfolding right before our eyes is too big to grasp and hold, or make any real sense of. 

We have all been stretched a bit too thin in recent weeks. I have fought for the light and prayed for the good until I was exhausted, fed up, and angry. 

I have asked again and again in recent months: Where is the bold and loving new world I have been dreaming of and working to create since I was a child?

After having many restless nights, deep and jarring discussions with friends, and a few dips into hopelessness, I have found a new peace.

I have claimed this peace through surrender.

Not through surrendering to one side or another, but by surrendering to a greater force that embraces and includes the black and the white, the red and the blue, and all that lives within these polarities. I surrender, again and yet again, to the messy and sometimes painful process of birthing this bold new world.

I surrender, and I humbly bow to the vast creative power that sparked this magnificent life in the first place.

I surrender to the great unknown, and trust that amidst all the strife and craziness, everything really is all right. 

I trust in living with my eyes wide open, embracing all with a heart that knows no bounds.

I trust in the small acts of  goodness that are quietly healing the broken human heart which has felt so much suffering.

I trust in the returning light that is, in this very moment, giving birth to a whole new world. Right in the midst all this trauma and drama.

Standing in this eternal light,
Ariana