This time of year can make you feel adrift. Though traditionally we are still in Christmastide until Twelfth Night, it now seems more like a form of Limbo – waiting for the New Year’s Eve celebrations. There’s a pause in the circling of the year as it turns over to start all over again.

The colloquial use of Limbo as a place or time when everything is held up may well seem apposite for these days – but it feels more like Purgatory to me. There is a sense of working through things, of heading towards a new destination.

In Science for Year Three, we looked at  the life-cycle of the butterfly. I learned that the caterpillar doesn’t just sprout wings that it already had and fly away. Remarkably, it deconstructs itself, becoming a chrysalis full of insect soup before re-assembling its constituent parts as a butterfly. It strikes me that such a radical transformation is not entirely comfortable.

This time of year is often unsettling. The shades of those who are not here drift across the celebrations. We recall things we wish we had not done – or perhaps regret things we have. The focus on our families and friends can stir up muddier thoughts and feelings than we care to consider aloud. Where are the boundaries?

From a writer’s point of view, this is all good. I make no wonder that there are ghost stories a-plenty – so many secrets, so many hidden things coming to the surface ( see my post from earlier in the month).  As my YA author friends know, The Edge is an interesting place to be.

Yes – emergence is demanding.

So to all my writing friends – and any one with  expectations for 2012:

I wish you a hopeful Christmas

I wish you a brave New Year

May all anguish, pain and sadness

Leave your heart and let your road be clear.

(Greg Lake)