Uncontainable
There’s a potter in Athens Georgia whose work includes a symbol. Years ago, while having breakfast at a local bakery, I asked him about it while standing before a table of his wares for sale. I watched his face as he seemed to struggle to define it. He said that the symbol loosely interpreted into uncontainable love. He then said that didn’t fully capture it, that it was bigger than that. Bigger than uncontainable love.
When we still lived on Shady Lane, my room, at Christmas, would be turned over to other relatives who came to stay. This meant that, every other year, I would switch staying either with my sister or with my brother in their rooms upstairs. The anticipation of Christmas day felt uncontainable inside of me. The joy of getting a real tree with daddy; the tree itself being a decoration, presents arranged underneath it, adorning it further. I liked to turn off all the lights except for the tree and sit by it, often lying underneath it, just to look at it. That’s something that hasn’t left me.
When friends and family have shared cuttings or separate plants from their yard to transfer to mine and the garden tells a story, so does the tree. There are ornaments from trips with my husband, from friends throughout my adult life, from my childhood, including hand painted ones by my mother. These likely came from a kit, a box with paint-by-number type instructions, but they were still well done by her and by her hand. So, I feel a connection to her each Christmas. There are other decorations that remind me of childhood Christmases like a marble bust of the Madonna and child which was quite often in our entrance hall surrounded by greenery. When the decorations are unpacked each year, memories come like snapshots.
These holy days, this time of year, can be energetically charged with memory, with love, with grief (which is just another form of love) and with expectation. Advent and the Winter Solstice lead us to today. A time of reflection, quiet and darkness. I like to look at the shortest day of the year of light as opportunity. The next day, it’s a little lighter; the day after that, a little longer light.
The darkness is not “bad” as Barbara Brown Taylor writes about in Learning to Walk in the Dark. She invites that relationship and being curious about it. Not just a “solar spirituality” but a “lunar” one as well. This feels like a whole picture. A time that can be so rich with detail and event, we’re also given the opportunity to slow down and be quiet. This may feel counter to the hustle of Christmas morning.
Lately, the uncontainable feeling inside has to do with feeling connected to something greater. My hope for you is that whatever feels present, a story you sit with it, that there is the opportunity to learn to be curious about it. As someone who has been well-versed with filling up every minute of the day with something, I am a continuing student of learning to let go of expectation, of things having to be a certain way in order for it to be right and attempting to make room for what is meant to be. That is a gift.
Try this:
Write about an ornament or decoration from childhood
Write about a tradition you have created for yourself in adulthood
Write about what “learning to walk in the dark” might mean for you and what initial step you might take
Let me know how it goes. I’d love to hear from you.