This is the time of year
When the sun is lowest in the sky,
When the days are shortest, the nights longest.
And remember – all our energy comes from the sun.

This is the time of year
When our physical energy is lowest.
When our positive and life affirming energy is weakest,
Our negative and destructive energy strongest.

This is the time of year
When it’s easy to get into self-hate and fear,
Into depression and sickness -
Into hassles with those we love.

This is the death time of the year,
The time before the rebirth,
The time before the new year’s sun.

This is a time to rest,
To be good to yourself,
To not ask too much of yourself,
A time to seek out the warmth,
To accept the death,
And to meditate upon the coming rebirth.

When I was a young boy, I almost died. I had pneumonia in both lungs. I had meningitis and an infected mastoid bone. I had polio too. I had all this at the same time. My folks got me to the hospital just in time, where the doctors were able to deal with the fevers raging through me and operate to remove the infected mastoid bone.

While under the ether, I had an uncanny experience. At first I was falling through the endless darkness, but then a voice told me that there was no bottom. Hearing this, I turned the falling into flying and blissfully headed towards the white light.

But then, the doctors brought me back. And when I came to in my hospital bed, I wasn’t feeling blissful at all. I was feeling freaked out. So much so, that I grabbed the bars of my bed and held on for dear life. My mother told me later that two nurses had to pry my little fingers loose from the bars.
…..

But this wasn’t the end to the frightening things that were happening to me. Soon I was hearing voices in my head. And I couldn’t stop them. Today, I understand that these voices were the thoughts of the various folks around me, but when I was that young boy, these voices were just plain scary.

Trying to drown the voices out, I began to listen to the radio, turning it up as loudly as I could. I began to read seriously too. Before I was out of the hospital, I was reading grownup books, at least one book a day. I was doing all this, trying to shut out the voices. And after awhile, I succeeded and no longer heard the voices.
…..

However recently, I have been noticing again that some of the thoughts I am currently having are not my own thoughts. Sometimes they involve more than one person talking. Sometimes I even hear heated arguments. Sometimes I see scenes through others’ eyes. Once I was almost asleep, home in bed. But, with my eyes closed, I was seeing the waves come in on a beach. And then, when the person, through whose eyes I was seeing this, looked down, I saw that I was seeing through the eyes of a little girl.

The main difference between when I was that young boy and now is the intensity and clarity of the voices then as opposed to the quietness and illusiveness of them now. When I was a boy, the voices were quite loud and would not go away. Now I can barely hear them, and, when I focus upon them, they disappear.
…..

I began writing this note yesterday. I wrote it to here then and wondered what I would say next. Last night, lying in bed, I was suddenly in the head of a shy young man when he unexpectedly saw the woman he was attracted to. I felt his excitement. I felt his fear that she would reject him. He didn’t know what to do. Should he approach her or not? And then, I was in her head, seeing him out of the corner of her eye, but without acknowledging him, and then turning away as if she had been going that way all along.

I had been like that man once. Perhaps I was able to be in his head because I had been like him. But look at what happens when I examine this vision as I would a dream.

What if I see myself as the young man? What if I see the young woman as that side of myself that I shut out and rejected when I was that frightened little boy? What if she had been the sender of those voices that so scared me then? Like the man in my vision, I know that I am very attracted to that magical feminine side of myself. I am very attracted to the voices and their sender. I am ready for them now. I know that when she and I finally join together, we will be a whole being, a holy being.

Last night, my visions didn’t tell me what to do to connect to this magical feminine side of myself. But I know what I would do now – what I will do now. I will run after her and ask for her forgiveness.

“Please forgive me,” I say, as I run up to her. “I rejected you when I was a boy because I was terrified by what I was going through. Give me another chance. Give us another chance. Please let me in again. We are intended.”