The Three Kings

What star will inspire your journey this year?

The Three Kings  
“Hearts must now learn to think”

   And so: now the new year begins. And now we ask: what star will we follow, as we begin our new year?
   New Year’s Day, January1, marked the beginning of the new calendar year. But the Festival of 12 Holy Nights that stretches between Dec. 25 and Jan.5 ends on Three Kings’ Day, January 6.
   Thus, we have just finished the sacred journey that we traverse every winter, from the two distinct hallmarks of Christmas.
   It opens with the image of shepherds, people in touch with the natural wisdom of the earth and its season, opening their hearts as they celebrated the birth of light in the darkness.
   It ends now with the festival that celebrates three Wise Kings. These represent those who have cultivated the paths of wisdom and head-knowledge. The kings were guided to the midwinter mystery of birth by reading the stars. As kings, they were the wisdom-holders of the cultures, the sages and initiates who could read the patterns written in the stars and match them with the event on the earth.
   These archetypes find deep resonance in our souls as well. As modern human beings, we are called to practice clear, radiant, non-sentimental thinking, developing our consciousness to be vessels for the divine. We must be kings in our practices of consciousness, for there is much that could lead us astray.
   And all the more are we called to open our hearts, to find the limitless wellspring of love that has made the world and has made us. We must find the true sources of kindness, compassion and even wisdom in our loving hearts.
   This is the way of the future. Love of power and wealth, self-image and prestige, comfort and greed will blind us. But there is a way through all of this: the path of the heart.

“So there abide: faith, hope and love, these three. But the greatest of these is love.”

Now, as we aspire to give shape to the resolutions we have made, the dreams we have envisioned during the 12 Holy Nights, the image of the star can guide us. We can resolve, every day, to align ourselves with the best that lives in us, with the Good, the True and the Beautiful in service of Love.
With this, the baptismal blessing of the epiphany can awaken us.

Winter’s Cloak by Joyce Rupp 

This year I do not want 
the dark to leave me. 
I need its wrap 
of silent stillness, 
its cloak 
of long lasting embrace. 
Too much light 
has pulled me away 
from the chamber 
of gestation. 

Let the dawns 
come late, 
let the sunsets 
arrive early, 
let the evenings 
extend themselves 
while I lean into 
the abyss of my being. 

Let me lie in the cave 
of my soul, 
for too much light 
blinds me, 
steals the source 
of revelation. 

Let me seek solace 
in the empty places 
of winter’s passage, 
those vast dark nights
That never fail to shelter me

What star will inspire your journey this year?