There is only this moment of pure joy as I sit on the floor, my whole body attentive to this baby, this tiny embodied being as they reach for each object on my bookshelf. Each object is felt with tiny fingers, held in tiny hands, tasted with a tiny tongue and mouth. Each object is full of new texture and contour. Each object is a delight of learning for this new embodied being. This baby has recently begun crawling, employing the new skill of coordinating among body parts. Something catches their eye and the new muscles in legs, and arms, and torso begin to work together to move their whole self to what has attracted their attention. We both crawl to a new place to sit again as, with newly dextrous fingers, they pick up a new object. The object is light weight but awkward in size and these tiny hands drop it on the floor. The sound of this new object hitting the floor brings a beam of ecstasy to their tiny face and they reach to pick it up and drop it again and again, enraptured by the ability to create sound.
Last weekend, where I live here in the Northern Hemisphere, my Reclaiming Witch community celebrated the Winter Solstice. We told stories of The Goddess in labor giving birth to the New Sun of another year. We tranced and danced. We raised energy through drumming and sound. We welcomed the new possibilities embodied in the Bright Being emerging from the Divine Darkness of the Divine Womb. We spoke our hopes for the coming year, hopes of justice and peace, hopes of clarity and wisdom, hopes of healing and repair for our own lives, for our communities, for our world.
This week in my Christian community we are also telling stories of labor and birth. We gather to sing songs and light candles celebrating The Christ embodied in a tiny human baby, the embodied Christ Child emerging from the Divine Womb of Mother Mary, Queen of the Heavens, embodied in a poor teenage Palestinian girl two thousand years ago. Our hearts are also full of hope for justice and peace, clarity and wisdom, healing and repair for the wounds of self and family, nations and world.
It is sometimes inconceivable to me that hope can be contained in something so tiny, so vulnerable. Yet in my understanding of the Universe, that is how it works. All power begins in vulnerability. All strength begins in weakness. All wisdom begins with holding each new thing in tiny hands, tasting, smelling, hearing, seeing each possibility for the first time. All work for justice and healing begins with learning to crawl.
I scoop up the baby sitting on my kitchen floor and smell the top of their head, press my lips to the soft curl of hair. This bright being in this moment is the New Sun, is the Christ Child, is all possibilities.
May this New Year bring us all joy and healing, wisdom and dancing, crawling and tasting, and the possibilities of peace and justice.