Winter Solstice. The dark time. It is cold. The garden sleeps under the snow. The nights are long, the days short, the sun low and slanting.

The wonder of Solstice is that at the moment of deepest darkness, the sun is born anew. Even if only for a few minutes at first, the days begin to lengthen. Spring will come again. Such is the promise of the solar cycle.

This is also a time of darkness for our planet. We humans continue being brutal to one another, waging endless wars, and compounding ecocide. Our Earth cries out—deforestation, radioactive waste, nuclear accidents, wetlands destruction, fishery depletion, toxic waste, pharmaceutical pollution, electromagnetic pollution, habitat destruction, oil spills, soil erosion, islands of plastic waste in the oceans, aquifer depletion and pollution, and many more atrocities to this rich, beautiful Earth given us as gift and upon which we depend.

We can trust that the sun will come back, but there is no promise that, if we destroy it, the Earth will be born again.

I have recently been touched by the book The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible, by Charles Eisenstein. He says we have reached the end of the Story of Separation, that our ways of relating to the Earth, to one another, our institutions, our money systems, our attitude of dominance are at the breaking point. We must find a new story. He presents the possibility of a Story of Interbeing. “That my being partakes of your being and of all beings.” How would we act if we believed in such a story?

Not long ago on Facebook, I saw a video that showed a circle of indigenous children. A white man put a big basket of fruit in the center of the circle and told the children whoever got to it first could have it all. The children took hands and ran to the basket together. When asked why they did, they answered that the fastest one could not enjoy the fruit if he did not share it.

If the Story of Interbeing is true, then perhaps our illnesses, addictions, suicides, depression are because we unknowingly feel the other parts of ourselves suffering. The Syrian refugees, the bees dying from pesticides, the coral reefs  disintegrating, the many creatures losing habitat, the Earth groaning and shifting under the effects of climate change, and so much more.

What can we do? It is too big.

There is hope. In the darkness of our dying Story of Separation there are many threads of light, creating the tapestry of the new story of our oneness. Some of them have been weaving themselves into our culture since the 60‘s. There were protests against war. Make love not war. The influx of spiritual teachings from the East tempered our Western dogmas of dominance over the natural world, and the separation of body and spirit. Communes evolved in which small groups of people courageously explored how they might live together and care for each other, simplify, make decisions by consensus, and produce food in a sustainable manner. Descendants of those communes continue in co-ops and co-housing.

In a recent article, written after the election, Eisenstein speaks of these threads, “those marginal structures and practices that we call holistic, alternative, regenerative, and restorative. All of them source from empathy, the result of the compassionate inquiry: What is it like to be you?”

Threads of light in the dark time, the time of confusion between stories. What if we begin with simple, daily acts of compassion? What if we see the opponent, the “other” as part of ourselves? What if we come to truly believe that we are part of all beings, that our own well-being depends on the well-being of the Earth, of all beings, even the “enemy?” Can we trust that if we all live in empathy, that it will make a difference, that we can be part of a shift toward “the more beautiful world?”

During the years I was part of a ceremonial circle, we often began our talking staff councils with the words, “Do you love yourself enough to listen with the ears of your heart to other voices of yourself speaking?”

What threads of light can we weave into our daily lives, what acts of compassion and empathy?

In the high country, except for the area around the trail, all is wilderness. One can see the whole cycle of life—the seedling, the giant tree, the fallen log, and out of its decay new life.

The wondrous persistence of life can be found in the most unexpected conditions.

A bare stone rises out of a tarn high above tree line. The wind blows a bit of organic debris into one of its crevices, and flowers bloom there. 

A fern crowns the stump of a long dead tree.

A seed of blue spruce lands between two slabs of granite. If left undisturbed, it will push those heavy stones aside, and grow to a tall and mighty being.

Even in the city, life persists. A tuft of green has emerged through the pavement in the street in front of my house.

Such intention! I have long thought that the nature of intention was best illustrated by the seed that awakens under pavement. We’ve all seen the result of such intention as we fuss to weed our driveways and patios. But imagine for a moment what it might be like to be that seed. It doesn’t bitch; it simply intends to grow, gently, persistently toward the light.  Light, light, light. And the pavement cracks.

Sometimes it seems that life throws a huge slab of concrete over our goals and desires. It can be very heavy, extremely discouraging. Yet the human spirit is even mightier than the seed. With intention to grow toward the light, even the heaviest barrier can be breached. It may be a different form of the life than we had before, like the fern crowning the stump of a long dead tree, or the soft mosses that grow from the decaying log.

But if we do not give up, flowers can bloom from rock, new life can emerge. If you feel you have buried in concrete, think of the seed.

I have recently returned from a trip to Louisiana to visit my partner’s family. It was my first visit to that part of the country. The air is soft, misty, moist, so different from the dry clarity of Colorado air.

But what amazed me most was the trees. They are tall, tall, fully leafed out in April springtime. My partner’s son has ten acres, all mowed in a vast green lawn with trees set wide apart—huge pines and many live oaks of different sizes and ages. My partner tells me live oaks are so called because they are always green. The leaves stay on through the winter and each spring new ones gradually replace the old.

My favorite tree on our host’s property was a huge old live oak near the front of his house. There was a bench underneath, where I spent long quiet times resting in the peace of its presence.

The trunk at its base is so wide, I had to go to three sides of it to reach all around it with my outstretched arms. The bark is composed of rough ridges, subtly adorned in its crevices with yellow-green moss and gray-green lichen.

Only about four feet from the ground, the trunk divides into five branches, each as big around as most Colorado trees. These five branches lift and divide, lift and divide again. Some wrap around each other like snakes mating. Up and up the branches grow, spreading until they create a full circle of shelter.

The tree seemed still to me except for the slight movement of its leaves in the soft spring air, but I knew it was dancing. Slow, slow the dance of its growth, as it shapes the magnificent architecture of its branches, too slow, for swift-moving human vision to perceive. But if one were to be very still, perhaps . . .

Does it love to dance as much as I do?

Coming and going from our host’s home, we were on the highways, in the shopping centers, surrounded by busy humans with their complicated agendas, attending as fast as they could to the intricacies of incarnate existence.

As we were.

Resting under the tree, tuning in to its essence, was like entering into the space of meditation. I experienced a kind of time warp—its dance compared to mine. It’s benevolent presence, its wide-spreading canopy, created a larger field around all the concerns of my little life. Perhaps they were not so important after all, maybe not such a big deal. Then, after a time, even those small concerns melted away until there was only peace, and a deep sense of connection to the tree and the Life that creates and enfolds us both.