Winter and the Winter Solstice Moon
Thursday gratefuls: The Solstice. My favorite holiday. Bastien’s Steak House. Alan. 50 in Denver 32 on Shadow Mountain last night. I-25 clogged with cars. The city lights. Glad to be home where it’s dark. Lights on the City Center, the Capitol Mall. Colfax Avenue. Families. My family. Friends. My friends. Shadow Mountain Home. Herme. Ruby. That puppy in my dream. Snow for Christmas. Life. Surrender.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: The longest night of the year
One brief shining: A new quiet has settled over me this Holimonth as Hanukah ended and the lights of Christmas, Christmas music, the whole runup to the gift extravaganza leave me with no nostalgia or wistfulness, rather a sense that Hanukah itself was enough for that sort of celebration though the Winter Solstice, tonight, remains my favorite Holimonth holiday.
Long ago before the age of reason and Francis Bacon, before the Greek astronomers and the Hindu astrologists, the Chinese sages we humans understood little about the world beyond our planet. Few were probably aware of living on a planet at all. As the longest day of the hot season faded into the past, our distant ancestors noticed that the nights grew longer and the days shorter. Was the sun going into a waning mode? Would it return for the longer days necessary for warmth and growth? On this night, this Winter Solstice night, that question would have loomed over those huddled together before a fire in a smoky dwelling. So it’s understandable that the big news for most on the Winter Solstice is the beginning of the sun’s reemergence, Great Sol slowly but surely reclaiming dominance over the forces of darkness and cold.
I have a different perspective. I celebrate at the Summer Solstice as the night begins to grow, as darkness expands its hold. It’s not that I’m a light Grinch, not at all. I love the growing season, air warm enough for short sleeves and picnics. Sure. I need to eat and my body loves a temperature suited to its native state. And yet.
Darkness. Where the roots and rhizomes and microbes live. Where the imagination comes alive, filling the night with faeries and ghosts and goblins. Where rest happens. Where preparation for the growing season goes on under the surface of the soil. Where preparation for personal growth goes on in the recesses of our psyches. Where the heat of the day calms, allowing a cool time for sleep. Where all is calm and nothing is bright. Fecund. Quiet.
Darkness does have its, well, dark side. Of course. The Forest gives itself over to the nocturnal Predators. The city, too. Criminal time. Deaths occur at the Hour of the Wolf, around 4 am. Sleep might be fitful or hard to find. Wrecking the day. Fears can come out to play havoc with our inner peace.
Even so. I’ll take some time, perhaps a lot of time, to go inward. To acknowledge the fecundity in darkness. Not to ignore the difficulties of the night, but to reclaim it from those who see it only as something to avoid with light or sleep or intoxicants.
The longest night. I’ll light a candle or two. Probably have a fire. Read poetry. Contemplate life and its complexities, its simplicities. Remember Winter Solstices past. What will you do?
