Credit: jonsama.deviantart.com

“For within your flesh, deep within the center of your being, is the undaunted, waiting, longing, all-knowing. Is the ready, able, perfect. Within you, waiting its turn to emerge, piece by piece, with the dawn of every former test of trial and blackness, is the next unfolding, the great unfurling of wings, the re-forged backbone of a true Child of Light.”
― Jennifer DeLucy

November has never been a favorite month of mine.  The trees stand black and bare against the steel-gray skies. The wind is brisk and nippy; a coming sign of the season that brings increasing darkness and even despair.

Certainly, I was in the midst of despair five years ago as I engaging in the last breaths of my divorce process-awaiting and preparing for a possible trial date among other dire scenarios.  Knowing I was in absolutely no control of my future, wondering if my relationship with my youngest would ever be as close as it once was, watching myself disappear as I got thinner and thinner by the day. And when it was finally and officially over, I had no chance to come up for air. Within 24 hours of my marriage’s death knell, I received the news that my beloved mother was diagnosed with stage 4b pancreatic cancer.

My world was full of blackness. I was very glad that my marriage was over, no doubt about it.  But the process had taken a serious toll on my soul even before it had gotten underway.  I was definitely an empty vessel in desperate need of refueling. My mother’s prognosis was grim and that news just knocked me out.

For a while, November became-symbolically at least-just a month for me to get through. A year hence, I became seriously ill with the swine flu followed by pneumonia. My mother had succumb to her illness the previous February and my former husband was engaging in a series of violations of our agreement that had led to many court appearances. I was spent.

It would easy to think that my life was a black hole-that each month and each season was November. Not so! Positive shifts, rebirths and renewals were happening simultaneously even during the darkest hours. As I was preparing to legally end my marriage, I discovered a yoga studio. The owners were recalling just last Monday how I was “a mess” when I first walked through their doors. Today  I am more whole because of them. It was also in November that my now fiance’ graced my doorway and my life with his love and unconditional support. And when I was seriously ill, my youngest was also. He rebounded quickly so he became my caretaker and fulfilled his role beautifully.

So the only thing I dread about the seasonal shift is the lack of light and the endless raking. (Well, right now maybe the possibility of having to get a new boiler!) I have learned that moving forward through all of life’s challenges and struggles is the only path to rebirth. I have learned to embrace the dark times, nurture them as a means for renewal. To hold them for a bit and then simply let them go. Their ashes are the seeds for a new life.