Happy end of December and end of 2022 loves. It’s been wild ride.
This Poetry Pause, published each Wednesday all winter normally for fans only, is going out today to each and every one of you as a gift of gratitude and celebration. It’s a video, like I used to record when I started Poetry Pause on Instagram on November 3, 2020.
The author is a woman named Patty Youngblood of Worcester, MA. She, now 80 years old, wrote these lines in 1997. Her niece, Cara, shares them each year on Facebook for the winter solstice. Cara, my former boss and forever mentor and friend, graciously sent me the poem this week in celebration of the new season and I asked her if I could read it for the final December Poetry Pause. Not only is it stunning and original, the message reminds me of all we’ve learned from The Artist’s Way. I know Julia Cameron would dig it.
Please enjoy.
The poem text is shared (with permission) below:
December Light
As a child you were caught
by the mirror’s image, the Sufi said,
you still think that’s who you are.
But you are really light becoming form,
electrons dancing like suns or stars
or waves arising on the sea.
You are part of the first light, he said,
the original energy, God’s self endlessly
making more of what God wants to be.
If he is right, if you and I are original
light, we are also the blazing source,
the place where December’s darkened days
return to gather strength and cycle back again.
These dark and holy days are not the death of any
thing, but a stillness waiting within ourselves,
the choir’s pause before Alleluia!
and reason enough to rejoice and praise.
— PY 1997
Share this with someone who could use it (and don’t forget to credit Patty). If you like the poem or one of the lines resonates with you - pop it in a comment below. We’ll share them with Patty, who would be over the moon to hear from you.
Happy New Year loves. May it be full of your light.
You are really light becoming form