Darkness, Death, and the Mother of Winter

It is cold. This time of year, as everything curls in upon itself, except of course Death, who has begun his visits. I can smell his breath. I've smelled it before. I know enough to salute as He passes by, and not to hate him for the work he does, both untimely and unnecessary, beneficent and bringing relief. He'd be an interesting guest at parties, I think. And every time notice of his visits reaches me, I both cry and acknowledge. It's a cycle, and I know that. Charles deLint says that the problem with us is that we keep thinking of life as a ladder, when actually, it's a wheel. It's the Solstice. Darkest day of the year. And, according to Eastern thought, the most yin time of the year as well. And yin is female. So I guess it's natural there'd be a lot of tension. Our culture doesn't acknowledge yin energy as being good and necessary. We fight against it. On this darkest day, we are to keep the light burning, so as to not lose it. It's startling how much effort it takes to continually brandish false light against natural dark. But once you've closed your eyes once or twice, you start seeing the glow behind your eyelids, and it's glaring and offputting. I welcome a day of dark. I rest my eyes, leaning my forehead on cool glass windows, and relish the rest. I allow the feeling of cold dark to rest upon me, the way it slides over you when you slip beneath ocean waves. I feel the insides of my eyes relax, my breathing slow, my muscles unclench. And instead of constantly saluting and invoking the Father of Winter in his Santa incarnation, I find myself seeking a quieter, more graceful, more female figure. I seek the Mother of Winter. She's a natural counterpart to Death, I think, and personification of the Yin energy the time is suffused naturally with. I seek the Mother of Winter within me. For truly, a mother needs the quiet, sometimes.