The Gift

The power went out in the late afternoon during a wild and untamed coastal storm. The light was waning, so I began preparations for a night without light. Candles were brought out and lit. A faint golden glow and a deep warmth came from the fire in the wood stove. 

I had been given a gift of silence, but it remained unopened. An underlying sense of discomfort enveloped me. In the dark I began to fidget. Rearranging candles, putting them in more strategic places for better lighting. Coats, purses, go bags, leashes all laid out. Just in case. Tidying up the house. Doing this, doing that. 

Then I heard my name called in a long windy voice - Saaarrrrraaaahh. A familiar voice, one I hadn’t heard in a very long time. The call of my soul to come home. Pausing for a moment, I noticed my heart beating fast, my breath shallow, my shoulders tight. Ahhh, an old visitor was back. Hello anxiety. Saaarrrrraaaah, I heard again. This time I answered. Show me how to be in stillness. 

I was led to my journal. With two candles lighting up the pages I began to write. As I wrote, my breath became deeper, my heartbeat slowed and I felt Pachamama’s hands anchoring my feet to the floor. 

My Journal Entry - December 18, 2025 

I am sitting here in candlelight with my journal and pencil being serenaded by silence. There is no background hum of electricity, no cars whizzing by, no TV, no phones. Nothing to distract me. Nothing for me to fill my time with. 

I listen more deeply. I hear my mind rushing about, grasping, clinging.“What if the power doesn’t come back on tomorrow? What if I run out of candles? Why didn’t I buy more backup candles? Wall sconces would have created more light. Will the groceries I just bought spoil?” 

I begin to step back from the clatter. This droning on and on about nothing that can be controlled or fixed at the moment. As I return to the silence and darkness, I notice the slow long inhales of my dog peacefully asleep on the couch. The creaks the walls make every so often.

I am drawn into the sounds of the whirling winds that shake the very foundation of the place I am sheltering in. The splattering rain drops slamming against windows. I am in awe of the power of Nature. The one who has thrown me into this abyss. Without my consent. Without time to prepare. 

Yet… Here I am. Sitting in discomfort and in awe that I can be here, be in this and still be ok. I laugh! Oh the drama the mind creates. Tonight I am sitting with myself in prolonged stillness, in luminous black. A space pregnant with potential. And so I shed my lofty sense of busyness - a heavy coat indeed. And step into the darkness and let it consume me.

When I finished writing, Pachamama’s fingers and hands began to grow like vines up my legs, torso, hands, arms, neck and up my back. Soon she was holding the back of my head. I leaned back and relaxed into the palm of her hand. She handed me the gift and this time I opened it. We blew out the candles and I surrendered into stillness.

Before I let sleep take over, I remembered the Wintering Despacho I had burned in ceremony two nights before, asking for assistance in slowing down and being still. Hah. There it was, my medicine working me already in strange, mysterious ways.

I woke up twice in the middle of the night. The first time I opened my eyes, it was so dark I couldn’t tell if I was really awake. I sat there in the void for some time. The second time, there was light. Ah, the power is back on. I sent a prayer of gratitude and made an intention to continue being in stillness before I fell back to sleep.

In the morning the streets were strewn with branches big and small and garbage cans flipped over. I heard chain saws coming from all directions. Trees felled in the storm being cut up and moved. Nature’s dead wood released. We mopped up water that had found its way through the door stoppers in the garage. The cleansing had reached our home.

I am reminded by my teacher of The Tower card and the cycle of life. Destruction, releasing, death, dying and rebirth. A mythic story with Nature as the narrator and I as the wiggly kid with the attention span of a puppy. Yet, the underlying message finally reached me. Be still, little one, empty yourself of doing, allow the darkness to consume you. 

There is still work to do. Noticing moments of silence that I resist or try to fill. But I am awake now. My shadow has been seen. And I love her. We sit together in discomfort and journey into the fantastical darkness of luminous black in search of our medicine.