Solstice

As the sun began it’s longest climb of the year this morning past, I found myself immersed in a dream. It was an odd dream, far from the strangest I’ve ever had, but it was interesting.

It involved, among other things, riding something akin to a hotel luggage dolly through the streets of my home town. That was enough to clue me on to the fact that it was, indeed, a dream. So I ran with it.

People showed up. Friends from back up in NY, mostly. Some weren’t friends of mine, but friends of the family or the children of friends of the family. One of the latter who “read” in the dream as a cousin of mine but most definitely looked like someone else, pulled me aside at one point.

The location was nowhere in my home town. It was much more industrial, much closer to places I had been at in college and since moving. She talked about her college experience and her return to the town.

I’m not sure exactly what set me off, but it was during that conversation (most of which has long since escaped me) that I realized this wasn’t just any dream. This was one of those Really Important Dreams. It had a more solid quality to it than most of my dreams–an undertone of depth and meaning that usually isn’t present.

So I focused more on what was being said. She approached the main point of the conversation and the facade she wore began to fade away, revealing who the message was really from.

And that, of course, is when the alarm went off, pulling me unceremoniously from that dreamland, ripping any chance of remembering the message away in a flurry of frantic movement to stop the infernal noise.

But today was the Solstice, the longest day of the year. The day when the sun climbs highest in the sky, to the peak of its perfection and the limits of its location.

We who are on a spiritual path are not unlike the sun. We must regularly make that climb to the edges of our ability. We must reach for that peak and see what spreads out beneath the mountain we climb. There, in the distance, lies our future. Above us, we can almost see the true form of the Divine. Even below us, the hard and enduring Earth feels different–it speaks to us of the multitudes of others that go about their daily lives as we make this journey. It reminds us not to forget them.

Then, as unceremoniously as I was awoken by my alarm, we are forced by the very nature of our being to descend from the mountain top. Over the journey, our memory of that bright future–of the coalescing form of the Divine–fades and is replaced with the shadows of passing time and more angled sunlight.

If we are not careful, we descend too far and lose touch with the visions and wisdom that guided us to that peak. We forget why went through the trouble and who we really serve.

But even in the darkest of darknesses, the sun still burns as bright. We just cannot see it. Others do, though, and we are connected to them–through the Earth. That most lowly patch of soil, the most stately of trees, all are emissaries that carry the tales of the planet as a whole. They are more a part of the system than we are as they have no sense of self, no deeply personal desires or fears, to get in the way.

The Earth and all of the Universe easily sees what we can only glimpse when we are at the peak of our experiences. It sees the Divine and resonates with it. It connects us all, in light or dark, summer or winter.

If we let it, it helps us remember what we saw on that longest day, oh-so-long-ago, when we ascended the mountain and looked out to the future.

When we could clearly see our path and our place.

When we knew everything was going to be right.

May the light of your day linger until the reflected brilliance of the moon fills your sky. May your path be illuminated by knowledge, wisdom and hope. And, perhaps most importantly, may you always remember your journey up the mountain.