Yule Calendar#3 – acceptance

Forgot to take a camera whilst walking the dog this morning. And what a morning! yesterday’s post about celebrating Yule as the return of the sun seemed even more right. All was frost and cold and light and bright and all was glorious. Nature celebrating itself. It took my breath away. So, when I got home, I grabbed my phone and went out into the garden to try to capture a glimpse of the majesty of the day. And as I write the sun is hot on my back through the kitchen window. Feels good.
And I got to thinking about why the light is so important.
Yesterday turned out to be an eventful day. Our cat, Tom, who had been missing all weekend, turned up looking decidedly worse for wear. We took him to the vets. There is a problem with his kidneys. They kept him in overnight to flush them out. We don’t know whether he will survive. It’s all fairly dark and it set me thinking. About Tom. About my mate Steve’s dad who had a stroke over the weekend and is in hospital. About my tai chi teacher,Jenny Smith, who died recently and the family she left behind. About my friend Helen whose mother is seriously ill. About the many people I know for whom this time of year is forever tinged with sadness because they have lost a loved one during this period. At first I was going to write about how the return of the sun symbolised hope – hope for the return of the light in times of darkness. But it’s not that. It is a deeper truth that Nature teaches us at Yule. It teaches that Time is cyclical – that darkness will come and it will go. And come again. As will light. As will Life. And death. If we pay attention it teaches us acceptance. Acceptance that the wheel turns, life has ups and downs, light and dark, life and death, yin and yang. That is just the way of things. We cannot change that. But we can find some calm in its acceptance.