The Winter Solstice marks the darkest day of the year in the northern hemisphere, and it also foretells the return of the light; the light that allow for hope and rejuvenation, for potential growth and new beginnings.
We, as human beings, have been facing dark times on many levels this year. As a nation, we have a war in Ukraine, we have growing tensions with Russia and China. Meanwhile our national leadership has apparently decided, not only to support Israel in its ruthless destruction of Gaza, but also to provide additional military aide supporting what appears to be genocide. We have even prevented the UN from intervening or even officially condemning the Israeli actions. This is indeed a dark night of the American soul.
That is not to mention the environmental disasters and COP28 that was co-opted by the oil companies to make it all relatively meaningless. So, it seems as though real environmental change will ultimately be in the hands of the oligarchs of the world who will only move if there is enough profit in it for them.
And democracy here in the US is under incredible strain since the Congress is dysfunctional in terms of reflecting what the citizens really need or desire. The Supreme court is living in its own Neverland, disconnected from the real world, and even the Presidency now seems to have abandoned its support of basic human rights. All seem to be under the spell of the moneyed few who would rather not have any real democracy since it gets in the way of free market capitalism and profitability.
Recently, we have been living in a world inhabited by the old gods of war and destruction, of chaos and unfettered greed, and the smoke from their fires has blocked out the light and hope for growth, rebirth and redemption.
We need to find our way back to the light if we hope to survive as a human species with any integrity. The other option is to allow those old gods to continue to block the light with their destructive fires and turn toward our beastly side, eventually using their technology to turn us into some humanoid version of what was once the glory of the evolutionary development of life. Instead, we will simply become another evolutionary dead-end, a species which refused to adapt to the required realities of the reigning web of life on this planet.
If we can find a way to fight our way through the smoke to rediscover the human fire of life that lights the way back again and to find the humility to value and fuel that fire, we can find its transformative powers and rise phoenix-like from the ashes of those old fires of destruction and bring back the light to this dark night of the human spirit, thereby revealing the path back to human redemption and sustainable sanity on this planet.
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