Oh today's post had so many things for me!! Like you, I LOVE the early dark (or "The Big Dark" as we PNWers call lit) - I like the cozy and LOVE peeking in the windows as a nosy parker! And I love Orcas (because, PNW) AND you even included my favorite prayer in the world, which - as a former Catholic but currently non-religious person, is the one I come back to again and again and have pinned to my bulletin board. Today was all about connecting with Mari - thank you!! <3
Lourdes mi amor! I didn't know about "The Big Dark" but I love that--so apt for the PNW, for its shadowiness and its relationship to darkness: overwhelmed but in awe at the same time. Oh how I love that we share a love for that special prayer--it goes far beyond religion and can surely speak to every soul at one point or another!
As always, just what I needed on this chilly dark night :) As an easily delighted summertime souled human slightly lost in the dark at 4pm, this was such a kind helping hand across the internet - thank you, as always. (And I love that you love Thomas Merton too! Just got back from a CAC retreat)
My darling, it is such an honor to hold your hand!!! I've embraced my summery sunshine side in recent years and have found it harder to connect to the darkness which used to be so easily lovable to me. Working on it, and convincing myself over and over! A CAC retreat is on my short bucket list!!!!!!
It was a dream come true!! Their next one is going to be Oct 2025 :) I think you would feel right at home in such a creative, open-hearted, welcoming community!
Learning to find my way in the dark has been my mission for the last couple of years. At the moment, I am in serious striving mode (it's almost summer here!) and I am forgetting that I am not meant to know everything, that I don't get to control the outcome, and that's not what it's about anyway, and I need to surrender to the mystery too. This double-headed beast, the ambitious striver, un-apologetically (well, it's a work in progress) perfectionist, and the contemplative one, opening her heart to magic, mystery and intuition (work in progress too). I guess so many beautiful things come for alchemising those two parts, and I am guessing (maybe) this is what happened with your new book proposal. It wasn't the way you were supposed to do it, but it was the way you had to do it.
"When everything was possible" is only possible when we can't have any certainties right? Because otherwise, SOME things are possible but not everything, right? Because we already know.
Reading this article has shone a light (ahah) on what I am missing living in Sydney. As much as I love it, I miss the dark, the mystery. Even in winter, it's such a glorious city (how terrible it must be ahah) to live in but I think it's working hard at brushing away the depths and the sorrow (although the sorrows are aplenty in this country). I miss the self-reflection and contemplation, in a city all about appearances, but even saying that makes me feel like a d*ckhead xD because I absolutely don't want to romanticise hardships but my strength, my new found confidence, my character certainly have developped in those times. And I do know one can be profoundly happy even when things are going wrong.
Also, IPAs. I am GLAD we don't have to do that anymore (not that we ever needed to but you know).
And that's the cue for me to FINALLY open my copy of Rebecca Solnit's Field Guide to Getting Lost.
Ohhh, you've illuminated why perhaps I never quite settled into Sydney: I was there in June and it felt like an odd extended SPRING rather than late summer...maybe like being around a 30-something who is still trying to relive their teenager years? Or something. Perhaps I could sense in Sydney the same denial of death/pain/winter that is so perceptible in Los Angeles. That said, I've spent very little time in both cities and I just KNOW that there is so much more depth than I'm giving either credit for. Maybe the dark can come forth in more subtle ways. I'm sure of it. My Californian friend says that, even with an eternally sunshine-y bright year, she can SMELL when autumn arrives. I can't do that! So maybe my attention to subtleties can use some work!
RIGHT, "everything is possible" only exists in complete uncertainty....reminds me of the lyric "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose." I often wonder what it's like toward the end of one's life when so very few things are possible anymore. My life has taken shape at age 38, and for that I am very grateful, but I also have (the illusion of) many more possibilities ahead. So much mystery left. If I were 78, what would that look like? I'm scared of narrowing possibilities. And, yet, want more certainty. Ahh! LIFE! Rebecca Solnit surely has most of the answers.
Another beautiful post, replete with ideas and words landing just the right way, at just the right time. I also appreciate the onset of earlier darkness, for a while at least, and thank you for putting words to so many relatable feelings I could never articulate so precisely. Being in my 50s, I've come to learn that darkness -- figurative and literal -- helps me access resilience, whether or not I'm of a mood to do it.
"Replete" is such a great word that I often forget about--thank you for that! And thank you so much for your gorgeous words, and your gorgeous camaraderie in appreciation for a ridiculously early sunset. You're so right; darkness of any sort is an invitation for strength, which can be exhilarating when you're up for the challenge--and quite interesting when you're NOT up for it, but do it anyway.
Thank you for what you wrote! I’ve always looked for new connections with winter and darkness (for me, the two are closely intertwined, almost like synonyms at times). Now, during pregnancy, being in my final months and more isolated from the world and the city lights, I feel an even stronger sense of turning inward. In fact, this inward movement feels very natural to winter (and darkness). Now we even eat more root vegetables – which grow underground, in darkness, in a safer place. My connection with winter and darkness seems to have been built primarily in a conscious way. As a person from southern countries, where sunny days are plentiful, and being born in summer as well, I have always felt that summer is my time, when I live and breathe fully. And yet, this time now has its own irreplaceable role. Accepting the seasons (of life) becomes so much easier with the acceptance of light and darkness in the way you described. Different seasons with different speed, focus, experience, connection to the world and the self. Which could be so complementary.
Oooohhhh this is just the most beautiful writing!!! Gosh, you have such a gift with words.
I can very much relate to the conscious building of a relationship with winter/darkness, as I have had to build one with summer/brightness. It doesn't come naturally to me, and therefore, I have a special relationship to it--one that I have earned, and tended to, and grown.
When I was little I used to pray that people I loved would die in winter rather than summer because it seemed like a natural grieving time; now that I'm older I hope to be pregnant in winter rather than summer because it seems like--as you said!--a naturally inward time. I do think both seasons can be an invitation to turn inward in their own ways, but winter does have all those natural obvious metaphors that you pointed out: root vegetables, etc!
Sending you lots of love during final months of pregnancy--what a magical portal you're in!
Ah, ditto! The darkness can be such a welcoming envelope for the soul — and this gorgeous essay reminded me of a quote from Virginia Woolf: "I feel entirely dehumanised by the sun now and wish for fog, snow, rain, humanity." ❤️
I’m not crying…. The nightscapes and Orcas and James and Thomas and “maybe”… After Such A Week, this honestly feels like you are “holding our hands in the dark.” I’m ready to embrace this season…literally *and* figuratively. Last Wednesday I stopped at the library in search of something that could ease my mind. I spotted My Inner Sky on the shelf. I leant my copy to a friend (a couple years ago eep!) so I checked it out and it’s been a balm, especially Twilight with the St. Patrick’s Cathedral story. There’s just so much love out there if we muster up the courage to look more closely. More seekers. Sign me up.
My sweet!! The idea of meeting you at the library is more delight than my body can bear. As always, I immediately forgot everything I wrote in that book thing immediately after I wrote it, but I do think of that hour in the St Pat's Cathedral so often. Gosh, it feels like ten lifetimes ago, and yet is still so present--for obvious reasons, and the less obvious mystical reasons of time-space blurriness. I've not yet emotionally accepted this Trump v.2 era but I have been calling those small moments to mind when I felt like...okay, we can maybe get through this, and might even come out better on the other side. Welp, that didn't exactly happen THEN, but maybe oh maybe it will happen now. Or in 20 years. Or 200 years. Bah!! Thank God libraries have not yet shut down, at least.
PS You better be thinking about your book proposal this season
“Or in 20. Or in 200.” 😂 That’s just the way it all works doesn’t it?! I got deep in a Pluto-shift-into-Aquarius hole this week, riveted by the passage of history since the late 18th century in relation to the planet. Made this time we’re in now feel like a blip BUT a unique one that a century from now Generation Epsilon will look back on with such intrigue! (Umm and hopefully not with too much dismay.) Anyway! Yep yep yep writing will be back in my life during Winter Stillness season. My creative block will melt away, I can feel it!
One of my favorite genres of holes!!!!! Love love love sharing an astronomical event with our centuries-ago pals.
Also- HOW did I forget to quote Erik Phantom in this newsletter..."Nighttime sharpens, heightens each sensation, Darkness stirs and wakes imagination"....? I mean, DUH-DOY???
“Turn your face away from the garish light of day” YES Erik Phantom. Yes I think that’s precisely what I need to do. Don’t mind me as I climb aboard your netherworld riverboat cruise.
Oh today's post had so many things for me!! Like you, I LOVE the early dark (or "The Big Dark" as we PNWers call lit) - I like the cozy and LOVE peeking in the windows as a nosy parker! And I love Orcas (because, PNW) AND you even included my favorite prayer in the world, which - as a former Catholic but currently non-religious person, is the one I come back to again and again and have pinned to my bulletin board. Today was all about connecting with Mari - thank you!! <3
Lourdes mi amor! I didn't know about "The Big Dark" but I love that--so apt for the PNW, for its shadowiness and its relationship to darkness: overwhelmed but in awe at the same time. Oh how I love that we share a love for that special prayer--it goes far beyond religion and can surely speak to every soul at one point or another!
As always, just what I needed on this chilly dark night :) As an easily delighted summertime souled human slightly lost in the dark at 4pm, this was such a kind helping hand across the internet - thank you, as always. (And I love that you love Thomas Merton too! Just got back from a CAC retreat)
My darling, it is such an honor to hold your hand!!! I've embraced my summery sunshine side in recent years and have found it harder to connect to the darkness which used to be so easily lovable to me. Working on it, and convincing myself over and over! A CAC retreat is on my short bucket list!!!!!!
It was a dream come true!! Their next one is going to be Oct 2025 :) I think you would feel right at home in such a creative, open-hearted, welcoming community!
That was beautiful.
Learning to find my way in the dark has been my mission for the last couple of years. At the moment, I am in serious striving mode (it's almost summer here!) and I am forgetting that I am not meant to know everything, that I don't get to control the outcome, and that's not what it's about anyway, and I need to surrender to the mystery too. This double-headed beast, the ambitious striver, un-apologetically (well, it's a work in progress) perfectionist, and the contemplative one, opening her heart to magic, mystery and intuition (work in progress too). I guess so many beautiful things come for alchemising those two parts, and I am guessing (maybe) this is what happened with your new book proposal. It wasn't the way you were supposed to do it, but it was the way you had to do it.
"When everything was possible" is only possible when we can't have any certainties right? Because otherwise, SOME things are possible but not everything, right? Because we already know.
Reading this article has shone a light (ahah) on what I am missing living in Sydney. As much as I love it, I miss the dark, the mystery. Even in winter, it's such a glorious city (how terrible it must be ahah) to live in but I think it's working hard at brushing away the depths and the sorrow (although the sorrows are aplenty in this country). I miss the self-reflection and contemplation, in a city all about appearances, but even saying that makes me feel like a d*ckhead xD because I absolutely don't want to romanticise hardships but my strength, my new found confidence, my character certainly have developped in those times. And I do know one can be profoundly happy even when things are going wrong.
Also, IPAs. I am GLAD we don't have to do that anymore (not that we ever needed to but you know).
And that's the cue for me to FINALLY open my copy of Rebecca Solnit's Field Guide to Getting Lost.
Ah you treasure!!!
Ohhh, you've illuminated why perhaps I never quite settled into Sydney: I was there in June and it felt like an odd extended SPRING rather than late summer...maybe like being around a 30-something who is still trying to relive their teenager years? Or something. Perhaps I could sense in Sydney the same denial of death/pain/winter that is so perceptible in Los Angeles. That said, I've spent very little time in both cities and I just KNOW that there is so much more depth than I'm giving either credit for. Maybe the dark can come forth in more subtle ways. I'm sure of it. My Californian friend says that, even with an eternally sunshine-y bright year, she can SMELL when autumn arrives. I can't do that! So maybe my attention to subtleties can use some work!
RIGHT, "everything is possible" only exists in complete uncertainty....reminds me of the lyric "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose." I often wonder what it's like toward the end of one's life when so very few things are possible anymore. My life has taken shape at age 38, and for that I am very grateful, but I also have (the illusion of) many more possibilities ahead. So much mystery left. If I were 78, what would that look like? I'm scared of narrowing possibilities. And, yet, want more certainty. Ahh! LIFE! Rebecca Solnit surely has most of the answers.
Another beautiful post, replete with ideas and words landing just the right way, at just the right time. I also appreciate the onset of earlier darkness, for a while at least, and thank you for putting words to so many relatable feelings I could never articulate so precisely. Being in my 50s, I've come to learn that darkness -- figurative and literal -- helps me access resilience, whether or not I'm of a mood to do it.
"Replete" is such a great word that I often forget about--thank you for that! And thank you so much for your gorgeous words, and your gorgeous camaraderie in appreciation for a ridiculously early sunset. You're so right; darkness of any sort is an invitation for strength, which can be exhilarating when you're up for the challenge--and quite interesting when you're NOT up for it, but do it anyway.
Wow I found my new favorite “Mari-ism” - So much to wonder about, so many ways to be surprised.
Ahh! "Mari-ism" is so sweet and makes me so happy :)
Thank you for what you wrote! I’ve always looked for new connections with winter and darkness (for me, the two are closely intertwined, almost like synonyms at times). Now, during pregnancy, being in my final months and more isolated from the world and the city lights, I feel an even stronger sense of turning inward. In fact, this inward movement feels very natural to winter (and darkness). Now we even eat more root vegetables – which grow underground, in darkness, in a safer place. My connection with winter and darkness seems to have been built primarily in a conscious way. As a person from southern countries, where sunny days are plentiful, and being born in summer as well, I have always felt that summer is my time, when I live and breathe fully. And yet, this time now has its own irreplaceable role. Accepting the seasons (of life) becomes so much easier with the acceptance of light and darkness in the way you described. Different seasons with different speed, focus, experience, connection to the world and the self. Which could be so complementary.
Oooohhhh this is just the most beautiful writing!!! Gosh, you have such a gift with words.
I can very much relate to the conscious building of a relationship with winter/darkness, as I have had to build one with summer/brightness. It doesn't come naturally to me, and therefore, I have a special relationship to it--one that I have earned, and tended to, and grown.
When I was little I used to pray that people I loved would die in winter rather than summer because it seemed like a natural grieving time; now that I'm older I hope to be pregnant in winter rather than summer because it seems like--as you said!--a naturally inward time. I do think both seasons can be an invitation to turn inward in their own ways, but winter does have all those natural obvious metaphors that you pointed out: root vegetables, etc!
Sending you lots of love during final months of pregnancy--what a magical portal you're in!
LOVED that last graphic. Every bit as explanatory than words. Good job!
Thank you!!!!!! One of those things that came from outside of me :)
Ah, ditto! The darkness can be such a welcoming envelope for the soul — and this gorgeous essay reminded me of a quote from Virginia Woolf: "I feel entirely dehumanised by the sun now and wish for fog, snow, rain, humanity." ❤️
I’m not crying…. The nightscapes and Orcas and James and Thomas and “maybe”… After Such A Week, this honestly feels like you are “holding our hands in the dark.” I’m ready to embrace this season…literally *and* figuratively. Last Wednesday I stopped at the library in search of something that could ease my mind. I spotted My Inner Sky on the shelf. I leant my copy to a friend (a couple years ago eep!) so I checked it out and it’s been a balm, especially Twilight with the St. Patrick’s Cathedral story. There’s just so much love out there if we muster up the courage to look more closely. More seekers. Sign me up.
PS August can’t come soon enough ✨
My sweet!! The idea of meeting you at the library is more delight than my body can bear. As always, I immediately forgot everything I wrote in that book thing immediately after I wrote it, but I do think of that hour in the St Pat's Cathedral so often. Gosh, it feels like ten lifetimes ago, and yet is still so present--for obvious reasons, and the less obvious mystical reasons of time-space blurriness. I've not yet emotionally accepted this Trump v.2 era but I have been calling those small moments to mind when I felt like...okay, we can maybe get through this, and might even come out better on the other side. Welp, that didn't exactly happen THEN, but maybe oh maybe it will happen now. Or in 20 years. Or 200 years. Bah!! Thank God libraries have not yet shut down, at least.
PS You better be thinking about your book proposal this season
“Or in 20. Or in 200.” 😂 That’s just the way it all works doesn’t it?! I got deep in a Pluto-shift-into-Aquarius hole this week, riveted by the passage of history since the late 18th century in relation to the planet. Made this time we’re in now feel like a blip BUT a unique one that a century from now Generation Epsilon will look back on with such intrigue! (Umm and hopefully not with too much dismay.) Anyway! Yep yep yep writing will be back in my life during Winter Stillness season. My creative block will melt away, I can feel it!
One of my favorite genres of holes!!!!! Love love love sharing an astronomical event with our centuries-ago pals.
Also- HOW did I forget to quote Erik Phantom in this newsletter..."Nighttime sharpens, heightens each sensation, Darkness stirs and wakes imagination"....? I mean, DUH-DOY???
“Turn your face away from the garish light of day” YES Erik Phantom. Yes I think that’s precisely what I need to do. Don’t mind me as I climb aboard your netherworld riverboat cruise.