Winter Solstice: Looking into the Light

Gathering Light 28A   60x60"   Oil on canvas  ©2014 Janice Mason Steeves

In my work this past year, I have been focusing on light, preparing for my exhibition in January at Gallery Stratford, in Stratford, Ontario.  I write this on the Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year.  

Ancient people knew about light.  They spent hundreds of years building stone circles and passage graves, orienting them to the sunlight or moonlight at solstices and equinoxes. Light was sacred to them.  

Inner light and the oneness of the world were ideas sacred to the monks on Iona.  Besides spending time this past fall visiting a passage grave in Ireland, and walking the ancient stone circle of Callanish on the Isle of Lewis, I attended a retreat on the island of Iona in Scotland. It was here that Celtic Christianity was brought into Europe.  I decided to metaphorically gather some of that light--from Iona and from the passage graves and stone circles-- and bring it home to translate into paintings.  I call my exhibition, Gathering Light.

The idea of mystery and creativity surrounds the darkest months of the year,  Winter Solstice has long been thought of as a time of death and rebirth when Nature’s innate powers and our own souls are renewed. There is a sense of longing and turning inward as the cycle of the year ends and the earth slowly begins to turn back toward the sun.  It's a good time to focus on gratitude.  

In my own life, I am grateful for  many things: my beautiful family, my friends, good health, my dog, a comfortable home and the opportunity to travel. This year, I am especially grateful for the gift of creativity.  It has been a very exciting year for me as I moved into a cycle of paintings that seemed to appear as if by magic.  We learned to work together the paintings and I, with me sometimes feeling like the assistant (to paraphrase a quotation of Richard Diebenkorn's.)  Of course, magic has taken over thirty years of diligent work to finally land at my doorstep.  But it has at last arrived. And I am grateful.

I pass along this beautiful Winter Solstice blessing, written by theologian and poet, Jan Richardson.

Blessing for the Longest Night

All throughout these months

as the shadows

have lengthened,

this blessing has been

gathering itself,

making ready,

preparing for

this night.

It has practiced

walking in the dark,

traveling with

its eyes closed,

feeling its way

by memory

by touch

by the pull of the moon

even as it wanes.

So believe me

when I tell you

this blessing will

reach you

even if you

have not light enough

to read it;

it will find you

even though you cannot

see it coming.

You will know

the moment of its

arriving

by your release

of the breath

you have held

so long;

a loosening

of the clenching

in your hands,

of the clutch

around your heart;

a thinning

of the darkness

that had drawn itself

around you.

This blessing

does not mean

to take the night away

but it knows

its hidden roads,

knows the resting spots

along the path,

knows what it means

to travel

in the company

of a friend.

So when

this blessing comes,

take its hand.

Get up.

Set out on the road

you cannot see.

This is the night

when you can trust

that any direction

you go,

you will be walking

toward the dawn.