Samain Moon of the Winter Solstice
“I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.” Acquainted with the Night, BY ROBERT FROST
The month of the winter solstice has come. The world itself, at least in the northern latitudes, has begun to go dark since the fall equinox. That cycle, repeated each year, reaches its zenith, or nadir depending on your perspective, on Wednesday, December 21st. That will be six months before the longest day on the Summer Solstice.
During holiseason many cultures celebrate holidays of light: hanukkah, diwali, christmas, for example. They are rituals that stand against the primal fear occasioned by the winter solstice; that the sun will never return, that the world will continue to grow dark. Even last night at mussar we spoke of the light of the candle, finding the light reflected in unusual places, the light that can get us through this period.
I want to speak a word for darkness. I eagerly await, each year, the darkening. On the long night of the winter solstice, I am at my most peaceful, my most tranquil, wrapped in the silence. Darkness is home to fecundity: the seed sleeping in the soil during winter’s cold, the babe in the womb, the slow decay on the forest floor, the next poem or book or painting waiting in the mind’s dark places.
We can, on that night, become one with the darkness. We do not have to banish it with brave strings of light or loud parties or burning huge bonfires. No. We can sit in it, quiet as it is quiet, fecund as it is fecund, joyous as it is joyous. We can let go of our need to see, to touch and embrace the outer darkness just as it is.
This is not to say that I prefer the night to the day. I don’t. I do prefer the alteration, the relief from the day that comes when night falls and, in turn, the rising of the sun.
It does bear mentioning that life is a journey between two profound darknesses, the womb and death. In this perspective the winter solstice can be a holiday to celebrate the beginning and the end of life. And to rejoice in both of them.
