Listen

 In the morning, before you begin your activities, find a quiet place where you can listen to the day opening up. 

Halig Daeg

 

The Light and Darkness of Holidays          

 

            If we lost someone this year, the holidays are going to be traumatic. We won’t want to celebrate anything, and all the happiness being thrown around like confetti will only push us further into our dark rooms. What we want is for the holidays to be over, and we will try to ignore them as best as we can.

 

            Holidays used to be regarded as Holy Days (Old English – halig daeg), a time of centering and remembering. They offered people a chance to pause in their rushing about, look at their lives, figure out what they didn’t like about them, listen for spiritual guidance to make desired changes, and head off energized with a fresh wind in their sails. 

 

Cantus: The Silence of Grief

In Arvo Pärt’s Cantus, a composition for orchestra and Orthodox bells, silence is written into the music. There are times when no musicians are playing, yet in this silence we hear reverberations of the notes recently played. We hear them even though no one is playing.

So it is in grief after a loved one has died. We still hear their voices reverberating in our hearts. We see their shadows moving through our days, and feel brushes of their touch, even though their bodies are physically gone.