THE WINTER SOLSTICE HEALING CIRCLE

Quite a few years back now I was invited to a winter solstice healing circle. I was asked to bring a candle, a cushion and a sacred object to place on the altar, plus a grab-bag gift and any musical instruments I could lay my hands on. So I did. I was hugged at the door by a grey-bearded acquaintance now dressed in white with a deep-red bejeweled surplus. I told him he looked like a “high priest”. “Yes I am”, he accepted the nomination, then told me to leave my coat and sneakers in the bedroom to the right, so I did. Then I joined the growing oblong of circular ritualists as cross-legged as possible, with graybeard at the guiding head, a novitiate moon-bloused young priestess at his side, as digitalized Gregorian monks chanted in the background/foreground, everybody respectfully discreetly shuffling and settling their buttocks, many hugs and smiles and energized wills, till graybeard switched off the chanting and spoke his heart was filled, he said, he is blessed to have his vision joined by so many (there were about twenty of us), he is reminded of the words of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Sound of Silence”, and he hopes that terrible void they voiced will now be composed and charged with light… So first let us join hands, one palm up the other palm down so the current will pass freely, as we introduce ourselves, our names and a few words about our present state of being.. ”nervous”, “grateful”, skeptical?” “special”, “alive”, “nervous”, “OK”…. And now we will call in the Four Directions, east, south, west, north…Positive speaks as positive wills…And now I will try to guide you into your deepest recesses and out again without your deepest excess baggage, and don’t be disturbed by the intensity and sheer volume of the mood-music, allow it to electrify your imagination and fire your blood, cause now we will hammer and bang our drums, shake our tambourines and leap about.. Shall we try it, let’s be sacred jokers and have fun be happy let our bodies make noises and shapes…Now we’ll take a break so people can stretch in peace or chat or relieve themselves before we gather finally to send out our prayers our harmonized energies have earned, let us mouthe them out into the air so they will carry BLESSED BE” and “HO” we are ALIVE together and trying to HEAL and it is GOOD!! But now we must make any necessary social announcements before we send home the Four Directions and call it a night, retire to our separate togethernesses, people may hang out and chat if they like, hug and consolidate the convictions carried out of their deepest recesses…That’s all, folks, no guarantees are given in this life which isn’t the business a lot of people try to behave it is. I gather up my drum and my coat and my sneakers and embrace goodnights to my hosts, and sadly I feel thoroughly dried-up emptied of genuine desire, too much willful positive must have negated the dramatic doubt in my life which apparently I needed to feel real, I felt puny and wasted and disenchanted, and I know it was just where I was at the time, my trip, I was tired from a frustrating day’s eteceteras etcetera… I knew I respected my effort's hostings and their earnest searchings for their callings, and we had to move on from there, but somehow I had to put more of my own oar in otherwise I would just be guided up somebody else’s stream into somebody’s else’s deepest recesses where I would find their baggage and then it would be mine…O the cave is deep to which the entrance is hidden the forest is thick to which the road never leads the sky is clear above the clouds and underneath all this hair I am totally bald……