Each Christmas time there comes a card or a letter or a gift that deepens the meaning of this set-apart time (one definition of “Holy”). This year it is a book by Charlie Mackery called The Boy, the mole, the fox and the Horse.(Harper One, 2019) You can read it front to back or back to front or just open it in the middle. It is a book of the wisdom of these four creatures who become friends.

The book comes as a balm to my soul. The grief of the last year had settled down to sleep for a while but two days ago, I saw a video of my friend who passed , and it rose up on one elbow and howled again. And just as all the grief books predict, it brought with it the losses of my father and sister who both died in the 80’s, the grief that my 96 year-old mother has COVID now and the collective grief of so many in the time of uncertainty and loss. My heart aches for our human community.

So the book comes telling what I hold as the great Truths of living, especially in these times. I wish I could send it to everyone. I know I will be ordering some soon.

“Tears fall for a reason and they are your strength, not weakness,” says the Horse.

“When the big things feel out of control….focus on what you love right under your nose.”

So I wrapped my heart in friendship on the night of Winter Solstice, singing and drumming and throwing what I need to release written on a piece of paper into the fire. In this way, I keep walking toward light, even if it feels hidden, like the “stars” of Jupiter and Saturn in the Great Conjunction were hidden beneath a cloud that night. But the light is there. Blessings to all who read this and are suffering. May we hold on together.