What is it about January and especially the Feast of the Epiphany that sends us into the heart of our lives with questions? What is my deepest desire for this New Year? What star am I to follow? How can I, like Brigid of Kildare, FOCUS on what matters most?

Artwork by Jan Richardson

When a snowfall created a white wonderland around my home, I paced out a snow labyrinth, with three intersecting spirals. I walked it, holding my confusion, asking, “What am I to do? Where shall I focus my energy?What is most important in my life?”

I reached the heart centre of the labyrinth, stood listening, still unsure. Then as I retraced my steps, an answer arose, so simple I might have dismissed it… the labyrinth itself showed me. Choose from your heart centre. What do you most desire?

I, and those who share my longing, desire a new spirituality for our time, one that recognizes that from the beginning, evolution has been a spiritual process. At the heart of our Universe is Love. To live from this understanding calls for strength courage to hold to our trust in a Universe that is permeated with Divine Love

As the ancient weavers worked at their looms, they created and shared stories that wove meaning through their lives. The fragments of these tales that still remain reveal their understandings of love, of wisdom, of darkness, of suffering. Remembering these tales lends enchantment, as well as clarity as we sit down at our looms and choose the coloured yarns for the weaving of a spirituality for our time.

We know what we are about, our hands are strong, supple, as we select the shades, the textures, the combinations that harmonize best. We include the dark threads as well as the golden, the soft fibers as well as the tough. We know this weaving requires it all… the warm rose madder of love, that stretches across the universe for three trillion miles in a NASA photograph… the gold of wisdom, polished to glowing through times of suffering and loss… the deep purple threads that remind us that 96% of the universe, including ourselves, dwells in darkness. Invisible threads of beauty wind themselves into the spaces between the weaving: music, song, dance, poetry, stories, the threads of the relationships that give meaning to our lives… Our shuttle moves with ease between ancient wisdom, and the edges of mystic knowings offered by today’s physicists.

The old Scottish tale: “The Stolen Bairn and the Sidh” is a story that never fails to inspire me anew to commit my life to what matters most.

By the fireside of an ancient gypsy woman, there sits a young woman, barely twenty. Exhaustion and grief have bowed her, stolen light from her lovely sea-green eyes. For weeks, she has been wandering the moors, knocking on every croft door, walking through towns, seeking everywhere for her small son. His father is dead. The little boy is all she has left in the world and she loves him desperately. This gypsy woman, known for her deep wisdom, is her last hope.

The old woman stands, takes a handful of dried herbs from a cauldron at her side, throws them on the fire. After studying the dim patterns of smoke, she reaches for the young woman’s hand. Holding it between her two gnarled ones, she speaks gently: “Prepare yourself for great sorrow. Your child has been taken by the Sidh, the fairy folk of Ireland. What goes into the Sidhean seldom emerges.”

The young woman begins to weep. “I may as well die, for without my child, I have nothing to live for.”

“Do not despair. I see one hope. The Sidh have a great love of beautiful things; yet, for all their cleverness, they are unable to create anything. They must steal or bargain for what they desire. If you could find an object of immense beauty, you might be able to bargain with them to regain your son.”

“But how shall I get inside their Sidhean?” the woman asked.

“Ah,” said the gypsy. “You shall need a second thing of great beauty to bargain your way inside.”

Then the gypsy woman gave her directions to find the Sidhean, blessing her with a protection against harm by fire, wind, water and earth. The young woman slept deeply that night. When she wakened, the old Gypsy woman and all her people were gone, and the place of encampment was an empty field.

The young woman drank water from a stream, ate some bread given her by the gypsies. Then she lay in the grass and wept. How could she do this impossible thing that was asked of her? After a time, the flow of tears dried, and a light wakened within her. She thought: “ I shall need not one but two things of incomparable beauty.” She set her mind to remembering all the lovely things she had heard about. Of all, she chose two: the white cloak of Nechtan, and the golden harp of Wrad. 

With sudden clarity, she knew what she must do. She stood, and began walking towards the sea.

She clambered among the rocks at the shore, gathering the down left by the ducks. And the blessing of the gypsy protected her from harm by the waves, the wind, the sun’s fire and the sharp rocks.

She sat on a large stone to weave the down into a cloak. She cut a strand of her hair with a sharp rock. Using her golden hair as thread, she wove a pattern of fruits, flowers and vines through the cloak’s hem. The cloak was so beautiful it might have been a white cloud fallen from the sky. She hid the cloak behind a gorse bush, then walked the shoreline until she found a frame for her harp. The large curved backbone of some creature of the sea was just the right size and shape. With strands of her hair, she tied the strings to the frame, then tightened and tuned them.

The lovely melody she played caused the birds of the air to pause in mid-flight to listen.

She wrapped the cloak around her. Carrying her harp, she out for the Sidhean.

A Sidh woman, arriving late, rushing towards the opening in the hill, saw her. Mouth agape, eyes burning with greed, the fairy gazed at the cloak. A bargain was struck. The fairy woman allowed her to enter the Sidhean in exchange for the cloak. The other Sidh folk were so enthralled at the sight of the fairy woman wrapped in the cloak that they did not notice as the young woman walked into the throne room. She stood before the kIng who was seated on his throne. She began to play..

The king’s eyes grew wide in amazement, then narrow in greed.

 “I have many harps,” said the King, pretending disinterest,yet I have a mind to add your harp to my collection. What will you take in exchange for it?”

The young woman said,“Give me the human child you have here.”

The King whispered to his servants who brought a great cauldron of jewels. They poured the shining gems at her feet. Not bothering to look at them, the young women gazed steadily at the king.

“Only the child,” she said. The servants came a second time with a cauldron of gold pieces. Again she did not look. She played on her harp a tune of such love and longing that the King was overcome.

The servants were sent out and returned carrying the child. When he saw his mother, he gurgled with delight, and stretched out his arms to her. Letting the harp be taken from her, she lifted her arms to receive him.  Then she walked with him out of the Sidhean.

In this new year of 2026, a question rises with urgency. How may my life, how might your life, offer the incomparable gifts of great beauty: compassion, light and hope to others in the midst of planetary darkness? Might I, might you, begin each day asking that same question?

Perhaps we shall find, as Rilke suggests, that we are living into the answer….

Perhaps, like the young mother in this tale, we have what we need within us: in our imagination, our heart, our very essence.