A Soltice Gift

It is usually around Winter Solstice (Christmas time) that we think about giving and receiving presents, but this year it was Summer Solstice when I received a very special, touching, and fitting gift for the season.

Actually it was Solstice Eve. I was on a beach on Puget Sound drumming my little heart out with a group of kindred souls, sending prayers, music, and energy of healing to the Ocean and Her peoples. It had been a long day, having spent 6 or 7 hours at a psychic fair doing readings all day, on top of the 8 or so hours the previous day. Though happy, I was pretty knackered. I've also been having difficulty getting to bed at a decent time, experiencing organizational challenges for all the myriad projects I am trying to work on concurrently. So after a few hours at the drumming ceremony, I decided it would be a good idea to head home and get some sleep.

I said good-bye to a dear friend who had just shown up out of the blue, after not seeing her for quite some time, and then went to find someone else who was there that I wanted to wish good night. I found her, and after saying my good-byes, she kind of pulled me off to the side away from the crowd, saying there was something she wanted to tell me.




Though I don't remember her exact words, they touched me deeply, bringing tears to my eyes. What she expressed to me was a gratitude for my presence in her life, and how that presence had made a big difference, demonstrating to her and helping her to understand the gentleness and humbleness of true balanced masculine energy, and what that looks and feels like.

I couldn't help giving her another hug and whispering a thank you to her, which seemed to surprise her, since she was the one thanking me. It may not seem like that big of a deal, but it is a relatively new thing for me to have these qualities seen as strengths, and I don't know if she still understands what a gift she gave me. I mean my inner circle of friends have told me similar things, but this was someone I see only on occasion, and someone I hold in very high esteem. It is more usual, and this started in my childhood, to be thought of as weak, a momma's boy, or even gay. To hear this validation out loud, to have some one really see me and recognize these parts of me as balanced and strong rather than imperfections or inadequacies that needed to be fixed or at least compensated for, was huge.




I felt that just by the integrity of walking my path, I had helped heal something in her, and by her sharing that with me, I can almost feel, even now, the little boy inside of me who was always misunderstood, to the point of believing those judgements about himself, stand a little taller in his/my own healing.




And it was perfect timing, a Summer Solstice gift, as we celebrate the peak of active, masculine energy with the sun reaching its zenith on the longest day of the year, before starting to slip closer to the feminine energy of winter dreams.

I left and drove home, still wiping the occasional tear from my eye, with a prayer repeating over and over in my head:

"Thank you!"