“Only in the deepest silence of night
the stars smile and whisper among themselves.”
–Rabindranath Tagore (quoted in Dear Heart, Come Home page 52)
Nearly full-moon over model Stonehenge last night.
I know it is summertime and that we’ve just passed the summer solstice. It is also the full moon—bright, full of promise, energy, and enthusiasm. The time for descent, and retreat, and rest, and cocooning is not yet upon us. Regardless, I remain in the mood to wrap up, wind down, finish up. I’m having a new baby in October and I feel a powerful, powerful call to finish all kinds of things so I can fully greet him. One of my projects is evaluating and reducing my book collection. As I do so, I find odds and ends I’d marked to write about or remember. Rather than storing the whole book, it makes sense to me to save the one or two pages I’d marked instead. So, despite the incongruency with the time of year, I’d like to share this prayer and meditation exercise I saved from the book Dear Heart, Come Home: The Path of Midlife Spirituality by Joyce Rupp (now up for grabs in my giveaway box if anyone local wants it for free!). I think it would be a perfect reading and brief meditation to use during a late fall or winter ceremony…
A Prayer for the Cave Time
Guardian of my soul, thank you,
for guiding me in the dark places,
for reaching me through the people of my life,
for drawing near to love me when I feel unlovable,
for teaching me how to tend my wounds,
for guarding me with words of truth
and moments of empowerment,
for allowing my pain and struggle
so that I can come to greater wholeness.
Guardian of my soul,
you are my Coach in the Cave,
my Voice in the Fog
my Midwife of Wisdom.
I place my trust in you
as I give myself to the process
of learning from my darkness.
–Joyce Rupp (page 53, Dear Heart, Come Home)
Because I’m feeling on the lazy side, I did not transcribe the meditation, I took a picture of the page instead (page 183).
There are some associated journaling and discussion questions about the cave of darkness in your own life as well (slightly modified/edited from page 51-52):
- Have you experienced a significant time of darkness? What was it like for you?
- What do you most resist about the cave of darkness?
- Do you care for yourself when you are in darkness? (If so, how?)
- What gives you the courage to go on?
- How has darkness been a teacher for you?
For more about endarkenment see my previous essay here:
…In fact, what if the Goddess Herself is found in the dark? Judith Laura writing about dark matter in the cosmos writes, “might we call this ‘unseen force’ Goddess? Dark matter could be identified with the womb of the Mother, continually gestating particles, suns, galaxies, which flow from her in a continual stream…Dark matter might also be represented as the Crone aspect of the Goddess—dark and powerful…”
via Endarkenment
Remember to listen to the night wind woman and her talkative silence: 
Listen to what is walking here
tiptoeing through your dreams
knocking at the door of your unconscious mind
whispering from shadows
calling from the full moon
twinkling in the stars
carried by the night wind woman
rising at sunset
peeking out
in tentative
yet persistent purpose.Listen to the call
trust the talkative silence…via Womanrunes: The Crescent Moon | WoodsPriestess.
WoodsPriestess 