The word Solstice means “Sun Standing Still” in Latin, marking the time in Gaia’s year where there is a pregnant pause of stillness and fullness in both northern and southern lands. Our festival team was inspired this year to explore the gifts and wonder possible when we can consciously create “Sanctuaries of Stillness” for ourselves and others. Times when we intentionally pause, becoming fully present to ourselves and to our surroundings, finding rest and refreshment in busy hectic days. What can we discover in those moments of ‘standing still’ with Gaia? What mystery and magic can arise in those times? What allies, seen and unseen, will join us as we accompany Gaia toward her greatest in-breath (Winter Solstice) and greatest out-breath (Summer Solstice) in the year?
We are sharing some of the treasures we have experienced in “Sanctuary of Stillness” moments in our lives. Lucinda’s captures the mystery of a winter’s night, and Linda’s the gift of a summer’s day. Freya’s offers us a rich reflection on the quality of “Stillness.”
May these bring blessings to you, wherever you find yourself at Solstice time!
Twelfth Night – A Winter’s Tale
by Lucinda Herring
On the eve of January 5th, forty years ago, I was sitting on the front porch of my family’s old log cabin in Alabama. It was nearing midnight, and the air was frigidly cold – only 10 degrees F. Unable to sleep, I had wrapped myself in warm blankets and come out into the night, seeking a peace I had not found the entire Christmas season. I was rocking back and forth on our wooden swing, but stopped, afraid that the creaking of the chains would wake my sleeping family. In the ensuing silence, I fell into a “Sanctuary of Stillness,” so deep and transformative, I have never been the same since.
The forest around me was utterly still. No wind stirred the bare winter branches or rustled the fallen leaves. No bird called; no animal crept through the shadows. I gazed out into the woods surrounding the cabin and was startled to see that the forest was beginning to glow with an unearthly light. I searched for the moon above the treetops, as the logical source of the sylvan glow, but then remembered that the moon was new and dark. I could see a myriad of stars through the trees – sparkling like diamonds in the crystal-clear sky, but their radiance could not account for the growing light around me.
I got up and walked with wonder into the forest, my boots crunching on the frozen ground. I didn’t go far, longing for the deep stillness once again, feeling I was trespassing on something sacred and holy by moving and making noise. Pausing, I stood with my feet planted among the moss and stones, so I could enter a “Sanctuary of Stillness” once again. To my amazement, I realized the luminous glow I was experiencing was not coming from the skies above, but seeping out of the earth beneath me, swelling up from the dark damp ground, and flowing in filaments of shining light through every living thing around me.
I was not seeing with my physical eyes so much, but from a deep inner felt sense that my whole body and soul recognized. I knew, without knowing how, that I was witnessing the “Return of the Light” to the land. I was “seeing” Gaia’s Breath as light and life force – that which had been held in a liminal pause of deepest inhalation at Winter Solstice time – rising up now as a shining promise of new life to come, even though the ground was hard as iron, and it was the depths of winter. I did not think these thoughts then. I simply basked in the beauty and joy of being part of something so much bigger than my winter woes. It was only later that I was able to more fully understand the magic and mystery of my experience.
A few weeks passed, and I was back in England, where I was living at the time. I found a small leather book in an antique shop and was drawn to open its pages. The words I read created another “Sanctuary of Stillness” moment, taking me back immediately to the one I was blessed to have on my land in Alabama, far away. I read of the ancient legend of a sacred hawthorn tree planted by Joseph of Arimathea on Wearyall Hill in Glastonbury, when he went there after Christ’s crucifixion. This sacred thorn tree (and its descendants) blooms every year at midnight on the eve of January 5th – old Christmas or Twelfth Night, heralding the birth of the Divine Child in the dark womb of Gaia’s year. According to the legend, on that holy night, light and life pour up and out of the land, and “the stars and the elements all tremble with glee” (to quote the ancient Cherry Tree Carol). New birth wakening in a dark and sleeping land. Just like my time of stillness with Gaia long ago.
My Dragonfly – A Summer’s Tale
by Linda Engel
As we approach the Summer Solstice in Australia, when the earth pauses, releasing her longest outbreath, I reflect on how natures inspires and guides me to slow down, to pause, to become more aligned with her timing.
One of my ways of finding stillness is to step into nature, most often my garden, either putting my hands in the soil, snipping a plant here or there, feeling the warm breeze on my skin, or listening to the deafening sounds of cicadas at dusk. These experiences, and more, slow me down - help me to find my center in my busy world.
I have a beautiful memory of one “Sanctuary of Stillness” moment, when I encountered a little insect being, who showed me how much we are all connected. It was true love.
It was summer, and I was swimming in a beautiful lake in northern N.S.W. This lake is very close to the ocean and is called The Ti-Tree lakes. It was at one time an Aboriginal sacred waterhole for women. The water is red from the sap of the Ti-Trees. I was standing in the water and noticed a little electric blue dragon fly floating on the surface. I thought it was dead and picked it up and placed it on the palm of my hand. It was no more than an inch in length. It was not dead; its wings had become waterlogged. So, it lay on my hand and slowly it recovered. It then stood on its tiny legs and started shaking and preening itself. It was so sweet to watch. Then it stopped and looked at me with those bulbous extra-terrestrial eyes.
That is when the magic happened. We just stared into each other’s eyes, connecting, with a deep sense of honoring one another. I don’t know how long we stared at each other, but it felt like time stopped and we became one. Then the little electric blue dragonfly flew away, skimming across the surface of the water.
I have never forgotten the experience. Since that time, I see dragonflies everywhere and sense they know how much I love them. I feel a dragonfly being is part of my pit crew now. I call him Dragonfly person. Since that experience I have felt this love and protection of the insect world (except for mosquitoes and blow flies, though they are also part of Gaia). That encounter opened something up in me, to protect them or to be a custodian, as insects do need protection from so many obstacles -mainly we human beings.
So, as I step into the Sanctuary of Stillness this Solstice, I will invite into my field the beings of nature – insect, animal and subtle – who always bring me back to my own center of stillness.
Stillness
by Freya Secrest
This solstice time of year draws me into the quality of stillness – when sounds and activity quiet and I settle, calm, and come into an expansive peacefulness. I treasure this moment in Gaia’s rhythms and try to weave its qualities often into my life. What comes foremost to mind in trying to describe my experience of stillness though is not a physical silence or quiet peacefulness, but a vibrant sense of holding a powerful stem cell moment of possibility.
As I was reflecting on co-creativity in preparing to offer a class on Manifestation recently, I had an image of myself in a woodland meadow. I saw a deer at the meadow's edge looking at me, ready to bolt if I moved. I wanted to meet it. I held out my hand with an offering of food. I knew I needed to be quiet and still, not only outwardly, but within myself so that the deer would come to take what I was offering. I could feel the busyness of my normal thinking preventing it from coming closer – all the thoughts of past events and the future ones to come, even those needed to become quiet. I had to create a new spaciousness in thought and heart so the deer could step forward and accept the food. Knowing I could bring them forward again, I consciously put my busyness “behind “me to open the space and give room for the deer and myself to make a connection. I stood quiet as myself, letting go and staying present in stillness. The deer came forward and within the vital stillness of our connection, something new emerged.
The wonder of that moment was its stem cell nature. Contained in stillness there was aliveness and possibility. It was dynamic, but also quiet in attention through a listening presence.
So, at its essence, stillness is connected to co-creativity for me. It is a shared relationship. Co-creativity and stillness have a physical connection in my imagination to an open hand, respectfully available, inviting and willing to partner, ready to be transformed. When I take that position, physically or in my imagination, I am softened, hopeful, strongly present to myself, and attentive to the world around me.
When considering stillness, I go back to this personal experience. Stillness now has a shape in mind, energy, and heart. It opens and grounds me in its roots in possibility, its stem cell fullness. It is a moment of pause that is both full and empty. It is active in Gaia’s solstice shift, winter to spring and summer to fall, as each season “rounds” the corner and moves into its new trajectory. It is here too for me, for each of us, to draw upon as we turn to meet and engage new possibilities in our lives.