Child of Wonder

This time of year the early setting of the sun brings darkness at a time when we're just getting comfortable for the day. It's a time for candles, a hot cup of something, and maybe a good book. I use this time of year to study, to re-evaluate and discern my spiritual path in the hope of forwarding my journey authentically, with sincere gratitude.

Since I am a 'night person', the darkness is comforting. It is also the time that I'm my most productive and can take advantage of being uninterrupted by the busyness of others during daylight. I connect well with Midwinter.

By my own admission, I am a festival junkie. I love all the holidays throughout the year (although I have my favorites). I enjoy decorating because I love the special feeling in the air. Most of all, I love the celebrations that express our humanness and interconnection with each other and the world around us. For me, there is an archetypal energy that comes to the forefront, particularly in the festivals of the latter half of the calendar year. They feel like a doorway to other dimensions that we only feel at a distance at other times. There is a deep soul-level alignment from Samhain to Yule that awakens within us which I believe correlates with the myth of the Divine Child.

The birth of that Divine Child of Many Names holds eternal hope in our hearts: we continue in the mundane physical world as the earth receives returning light and warmth with every new day and nature around us slowly awaken from a cold sleep. Spiritually, we see the sacredness of life renewed in the birth of a child of potential which represents our future. We go innocently into the newness of Life mindfully, with the feeling of being surrounded by something undeniably holy. Perhaps for just a time, our communities are united and optimistic. Whatever we call our holidays and festivals, the energy is joyously the same and we are caught up in the wonder and love of it all.

Each year at this time the story of the birth of a vulnerable infant who survives despite being born in an unwelcoming environment with the odds against him echoes throughout many cultures and religious traditions. The motif of the Divine Child is a global one.

The noted psychologist Carl Jung created a list of archetypes which includes "the Child" and had some rather profound things to say about it. Jung's Child appears in our consciousness when we are at our most vulnerable. At a time when we are too emotionally weak and feel powerless, when there is seemingly no way to survive against personal challenge, the birth of potential and possibility takes place within our psyche. It survives and grows in that moment of deep despair when we are overwhelmed and ready to give up. If we are open and receptive to nurturing this newness, it becomes our reality, and that reality becomes a driving force to survive. Jung, who was well acquainted with the metaphysical, understood how to create thoughtforms.

Within everyone of us lies a spark of the Divine represented by this Child of Wonder. The birth of every child is holy. The knowledge of the ages are reflected back to us in the eyes of children, something we have lost as we become older and jaded by society and culture. We come into this world from Spirit bathed in light but soon forget who we are and where we came from. This is what I love about my Pagan spirituality-we have so many ways to remember we too are filled with the essence of divinity. We are god/dess in our own right, created in the image of the Universal Source.