Singing for the Sun
Yule
Last night my daughter was born. 10:08pm 5 years ago.
As I meditated, reflected, and wrote about her birth, coyotes howled sharp and bright. I wondered if they had that night, too, as I slowly guided her with my own slippery hands, into the world.
Solstice is officially tomorrow, and yes, there is an exact date that aligns with the longest night and least light, but it’s important to notice that we have been in a slow descent. And in these few days in the solstice window, we hit the bottom, like silt slowly settling on the sea floor. The Great Exhale has been expelled, and we arrive in the gentle pause of no-time.
Just like birthing, the one who births is allowed into the timelessness space of all time. Hours or days are like one, seconds seem endless…last night as I was in my normal consciousness, I could imagine what it was like for my birth team and my husband, the feeling of post dinner/pre-midnight energies, sense the landscape around me, what the sounds outside of the house might be. But when I was in it, I was only, absolutely there, in my body, the intense, timeless and all-time present.
The darkness here in northern Vermont is oppressive this time of year. Impossible to ignore, even with modern lighting. Yes, we are having day time and sun, we are not in the arctic circle…but it is at this point that I feel like I have stepped through a portal. My grip on my stability of mood, or my presenting personality has slipped a bit. The body is confused, as the biorhythm regulating being that is the sun is elusive. Sometimes days or weeks go by without seeing it, and when that sun breaks through the clouds, it’s a literal hallelujah, an awakening in that moment, only to go back to forgetting soon after, survival mode.
I have come to personally refer to this liminal energy around the solstice at the ‘yule tide.’ This tide of emotion, of expansive thought, of inspiration and awe, and also of need or loneliness and confusion. The emotional wave of the wheel is an important part of the magic. Acknowledging the feelings brings their power to the surface of yourself to be wielded. They not do necessarily need to be responded to, or intellectualized, but just knowing and trusting the ebb an flow of them is empowerment, knowing they are part of the rainbow of experience of being embodied, of living in the environment you choose to, of the flavor and experience of a life and being a human and earthling this time around.
We can be reborn many times in one lifetime, and a birth that I have been going through over the past few years, and most intensely just in the past couple of weeks involves birthing myself as a musician, and most-challenging for me, singing.
40, better late than never. Truly, I feel like I have been waiting a lifetime for this expansion. And though at certain times it seemed like an insurmountable peak, conquering it mostly took….just doing it. Just opening my mouth, just asking a friend for help. And now over this past weekend, I found myself bringing my flutes to every holiday party, and even being invited to bring it and play. I hadn’t ever before been that person. It’s a gift in so many ways; one, it actually keeps me from needing a distraction or drinking alcohol, when I really don’t want to anyway/can’t due to health reasons. And I feel like playing an instrument, and hearing real voices live, and real instruments live, again, grounds my body in more realness, more presence, brings more intimacy to those who gather, and also feels more intimately in bodies and with bodies. A kind of intimacy it seems our technology and modern ways has stolen from us….that we may not think we want or need, but that we have forgotten how much we crave, how necessary that is for a fully satisfying human experience.
I learned just this weekend that one of the roots of the word ‘yule’ may come from the same as to ‘yodel’ or ‘sing.’ And in this story, the moon (who is friends with the sun) told the people they must sing loudly so the sun can hear, and return closer to the Earth.
Whether we are conscious of it or not, even in our modern lives, isn’t there a soundtrack to this time of year? Christmas songs on the radio at the least, and many of us still visit Christian Churches to hear or sing Christmas carols. Over the past few years I have been introduced to more pagan style seasonal songs, and this has been a huge opportunity for me to sing with less pressure of sounding a certain way. And something about these songs, created and shared for this time of year particularly, it’s as if their power is amplified by more voices. They are not designed to be sung alone. It’s as if this time of year, somehow we all get a get-out-of-jail-free pass and allow ourselves and others to sing with so much less judgement and reservation.
What a gift.
Maybe it’s our hearts that need it, or our spirits that just know that we need to sing to bring the sun back.
Here are some links to a few of my favorite songs right now:
The Snowy Path (instrumental)
This is so right on! Thank you for your inspiring and beautiful words of wisdom, dearest Adena...