I took a moment to capture these frost-covered leaves, so quiet and peaceful, on a tiny patch of grass next to a busy highway in front of the hospital where my father was staying.
A swan at a park near my home.
A handcrafted linocut inspired by the Linnunraata, a Finno-Urgic folk-astronomy story about soul birds.
Bare birch branches and a frost covered leaf reflect the long season of Wintering approaching. Gently the landscape reminds us of how deeply every living thing in the end, belongs intimately with the rich darkness of the earth.
I’m loving Clark Strand‘s book, Waking Up to the Dark: The Dark Madonna’s Gospel for an Age of Extinction and Collapse, a book about being open to the darkness, the original dark womb from which all life emerges. Contrary to our current over-emphasis on the life-giving gift of light, Strand convincingly suggests that darkness offers a potential for spiritual enrichment if we choose to harness it, fearlessly welcome it, and recognize how it connects us to the mystery of Deep Dark Time. He says, “We come from the dark, and we return to the dark. We are not merely in it, but of it. The darkness does our thinking when we let it, and it is the darkness in which we move” (22).
Over the past week, I have been in hospital next my father, a stroke survivor, as he goes through surgery to remove fluid from his brain which is affecting his cognitive capacities. He is in his winter season and I am overcome with emotion because he can no longer retrieve many words, does not understand everything that is happening around him. On the surface it seems that he is in cognitive decline, but remembering the wisdom of Strand’s book, perhaps my father is slowly accessing a depth of awareness only offered by those who are beginning their rite-of-passage into another world. When asked what the date is he says it’s 1903 and this only confirms how he is already slipping into the mystery of the non-linear, all encompassing Deep Dark Time. . .
The season of winter offers us so many gifts. Along with its reminder of nature’s need to rest, slow down, turn inwards and hibernate it also gifts us with the inevitable cycle of death that all living beings share. Many folktales that center around death and wintering offer us alternative ways to think about this season of life that provide a more expansive, wholistic, nurturing framework through which we can make sense of what might otherwise be a deeply unsettling and terrifying time.
The Linnunraata is one such folktale, a folk-astronomy story told by the Finno-Urgic peoples from the landscape we now know as Finland and Estonia. The Linnunraata is the word for Milky Way, but linnun also means “birds”, and rata means “track”, referring to the Milky Way as the migratory path taken by birds towards their wintering grounds in Lintukoto, the home of the birds. These birds, sometimes in the form of geese, arctic loons, or white swans, are understood to be soul birds, or soul protectors, known as Sielulintu, who bring a human's soul to the body at the moment of birth, and carry the soul away at the moment of death. I love the way this folktale offers us a framework to think about our mortality and what happens after death within the context of our intimate belonging to a seasonal bird migration that we can witness coming and going every year. The story suggests humanity is carried and mothered by birds at these pivotal times in our lives, and what a beautiful way to understand our place in the universe: not as masters, controllers, conquerers of the planet, but in the position of being nurtured by and cradled in the feathered wings of a bird. It is a heartwarming story that weaves us back into kinship with the flock.
Another folktale that offers us a more expansive and wholistic way of thinking about death is “Katrina and the Bright Falcon” which features the Slavic folk heroine, the Baba Yaga, a powerful elderly female wilderness creatrix often depicted as a wicked witch. However, this particular folktale cleverly gives a new meaning to this “witch”, reframing “death” into something necessary for transformation to take place.
In this ancient story Baba Yaga plays a vital role in assisting the main character, Katrina, as she journeys from innocence to experience in pursuit of her true love, a Falcon, which could be a symbol of Katrina’s True Authentic Self. In the story Katrina must harness the strength and courage to leave her abusive sisters who pressure her to conform to beauty standards, play safe and sacrifice who she truly is in order to live a conventional domestic life. It is the Baba Yaga who gifts Katrina with the skills she needs to overcome these challenges, enabling her to find her Falcon. This folktale is a reminder of what must die in order for growth to happen, and suggests that the death of something, or someone, is the path necessary through which a positive transformation can take place. In Katrina’s case, it is her separation from her abusive family and “death” of her role in that familial system that allows for her to find her freedom.
In addition to being associated with death, the Baba Yaga is also known to live deep in the heart of a Birch forest and she is often depicted sweeping with a birch broom. Birches have been worshiped as sacred trees in Slavic folklore, and they are associated with feminine power, magic and mythology and they are one of the first kinds of trees that sprout up when a forest has been clear cut or burned down, and for this reason they are a symbol of rebirth, renewal and new growth.
Towards the end of his book Strand finally discusses the ancient Yin Yang symbol, and how in the heart of the dark half there is a tiny spot of light which he likens to a seed planted in the darkness of the earth. With this image he reminds us once more how life needs to be enveloped in darkness in order to germinate, and how much we need the darkness to hold us, cradle us, nurture us in her womb before we can experience a birth or rebirth of some sort.
All this talk of darkness reminds me of a poem by Wendell Berry:
“To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings”.
I love this poem and feel the deep wisdom it contains resonates so much with the point Strand is making in his book. Both Berry’s poem and Strand’s book suggest that there is something vibrant that the dark offers us, if we dare to come face-to-face with it and listen to it’s voice. I find peace in my heart knowing that the darkness is an opening with potential, my relationship with my father does not have to end. I can and will cultivate rich conversations with my father on the other side when it is time for him to pass if I surrender to the darkness and stay open to receive its gifts.
Photo Credits:
Blog Post Cover (frosted leaves): Eugene Golovesov on Pexels
Header Photo (birches): Mikhail Luchin on Pexels
Reference:
Clark Strand‘s book, Waking Up to the Dark: The Dark Madonna’s Gospel for an Age of Extinction and Collapse
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