When the Dark is Rising

Greetings all,

I hope you have had a calm week.  Most of us are rushing around in December like mad chickens.  I've had a week of classes, clients, ceremonies, and of course Star Wars.  (Don't worry no spoilers within this post).

Four times a year I am required to drum.  I drum more than that, but I only absolutely have to on the solstices and the equinoxes.  My winter solstice ceremonies seem to move about from year to year.   When I build a house I will do my drumming there, but until then it seems as though I will be spreading my brand of magic around the region.  Last year I was given a dream to guide my ceremony.  I saw four warriors drumming for the light against the dark in a cave where the phoenix flew down to meet them.  Sure enough I had drummers in the four directions, and we drummed in a manmade salt cave, surrounded by warm salt lamps and twinkling star light in the ceiling. This year I drummed in a refurbished meat packing plant that has turned into an arts center.  The space had phenomenal acoustics.

The past two weeks I have had an old quote stuck in my head from the Susan Cooper novel, The Dark is Rising.  The quote goes, "When the dark is rising six will turn them back, three from the circle, three from the track."  I read a lot of fiction particularly speculative fiction, scifi, fairy tales, and urban fantasy.  I find there is a lot of emotional depth in these as well as paradigm expanding opportunities.  The world is not as solid as we believe, and fiction helps me to explore other realities and try them out.  Occasionally I get a little bleed through with these engaging stories.

In our solstice night ceremony, we had six people (including yours truly).  Three of us had drums, and three of us had rattles.  Three from the circle, three from the track was represented.  In dreams our focus can shift the landscape and action of the dream, reweaving a new reality around us.  Well life is a collective dream, and when we focus enough attention we create eddies in reality, little vortexes where other realms can push through altering our shared dream.  The ceremony I led was connected with many others being held across North America.  We heard voices during the drumming.  This is not the first time that has happened, and it isn't just me who hears them (so put the antipsychotics down).

Why am I telling you this?  Well magic and mystery are my thing.  It's my job to remind people that there is more out there than meets the eye.  Right now we are in a dark time both physically and historically.  The powerful elite have seized more and more control from individuals in their fear driven minds.  In these dark times, it is important to remember that together we have power, tremendous power that can literally change reality around us.  So in this gathering dark don't despair. Winter is here, but it will also pass.  Don't surrender your power,  don't give up.  Decide what it is you want to bring into the world.  Nurture the light you have within, share it with others.  Light up the road of life as you travel down it.  The biggest trick in the book is to make people think that what they do doesn't matter.  Take it from the Mooneagle, everything matters.  The smallest kindness can change the world.  The right word spoken in the right place at the right time can unlock a new future. So in these long nights consider your dreaming, consider your light, and consider yourself blessed.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle