For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, now is the time of the Long Dark of winter. The Southern folk will have theirs in about 6 months, of course, but it’s the same process. The days become shorter, and the nights are longer. In some parts of the world, the night lasts nearly 24 hours straight.
In humanity’s early cultures, this was the beginning of the winter starvation, and many early cultures would lighten this oncoming hardship with feasts and religious holidays, many of which endure even today. Across the globe, old gods die and new gods are born: Jesus Christ, Sol Invictus, Saturn, Frigga, The Horned God, Horus, Mithras, Amaterasu, Quetzalcoatl. This is the time of both mourning and celebration. We dread the coming trials that winter brings, but celebrate our ability to endure it - we’ve been enduring it since time began!
As with the cycle of the year, each of us goes through these times of darkness, often
along with the seasons. Like the Earth being pulled around the sun by the force of gravity, we are pulled by the Force though the cycles of life, good and bad. We can’t stop the world from spinning around the sun, robbing us of daylight every year, and we can’t avoid going through periods of difficulty in our lives - the Long Dark times of our soul.
During the Long Dark, it seems like the suffering will never end. Sorrow is overwhelming, depression is abject, isolation creeps in, and hope is gone. These days of personal winter sit as heavily on our souls as the snow that weighs down the boughs of the trees outside.
So what do we do to chase away the sorrow of the Long Dark, both of the seasons and of our spirits? We celebrate - just as our ancestors have been doing for millennia. On those long nights, we light candles, we gather with loved ones, we bear bright and shining new gods into the world in hopes that they will redeem us.
These are not celebrations of misguided optimism, though. Brightening the Long Dark won’t banish those seemingly endless days of sadness any more than we can make winter end before its time. These simple gestures and festivities give us hope, and fond memories to carry us through the rest of the winter. We create and nurture those new gods within us, born in the Long Dark, until they are ready to bless us with happiness and grace when the darkness retreats.
So celebrate during this Long Dark with your loved ones, and bring forth those nascent gods within you in preparation for better and brighter days. Regardless of whether your own personal Long Dark is affecting your spirit, or just the weather outside, take comfort in the fact that this cycle of Dark and Light is an expression of the Force, and is as natural as it is inevitable.
