Dear all,

As I once again sit down to write my annual winter solstice missive, I find myself at a loss as about what to write. It has been a long year. A year filled with loss. Loss of life. Loss of family. Loss of friends. Loss of relationships. Loss of work. Loss of security. Loss of love. Do I write about this? Do I try to focus on the hope the coming of the light that shall soon occur will bring? To do the former smacks of melancholia, and we have had too much of that already. To do the latter seems to belittle what so many of us have endured this last year.

I wish I could alleviate all that you have endured this year. But I cannot. I wish I could let you know, not just in your mind, but in your heart, that you are not alone, even if only in the company of spirit. But I cannot. I wish I could mourn beside you, and perhaps take up some of your burden. But I cannot. I can only say that I am sorry, and that you are all in my prayers.

And yet I still wish to offer up some hope. Indeed, as the Chaldean Oracles say, “may fire-bearing Hope nourish you”! The possibility of hope in no way invalidates the losses of the year past. But it is equally true that those losses do not negate the hope for renewal, or that renewal itself. What has been lost cannot be replaced, but we can make room for new love, new relationships, new friends, new family. The emptiness of loss, and the fullness of hope, are not mutually exclusive. And while the loss may never leave us, I pray that hope, though it may not diminish our grief, may make its burden bearable. If not now, then in time to come.

Blessings of the Divine, and the solstice, to you all.

χDionysios β

Diadochos – Ekklesia Neoplatonismos Theourgia