Winter Solstice!

 

The Wheel Turns--Winter Solstice

Waiting for it . . . the sun is at the southernmost end of its yearly transit of the horizon. The days will begin to lengthen and once again the promise of renewal is kept.

The light touches the distant mountains and illumines the clouds while I wait for the sun to peek over the wooded ridge. And here, at last, it is!

Something about Solstice always makes me think of the old times, when the return of the sun was cause for relief and merriment. The end of the cold and hungry times was in sight, and some of the jealously hoarded wood and food could be spared for fires and feasting to mark the occasion.

As we do today.

Solstice Blessings to you. 

 

The Shortest Day and the Longest Night

The great wheel turns and we hang garlands of light inside and out, bring in evergreen boughs and a tree in token of our confidence that the wheel will continue to turn, the days will lengthen, and Spring will come again.

Solstice--the reason for the season in many religions. 

I took these first two pictures yesterday, as I always schedule my posts the night before. So it's not exactly a solstice sunrise but the day before. And as I hung out, waiting for the sun to show itself, I could see the light spreading into the valley but still the sun was hidden behind a little ridge, It was well after eight and I had a brief flash of the uncertainty our long ago ancestors must have felt as the light was later and later in its return.

And then, oh the joy as it finally broke through!

Winter Solstice

Welcome Solstice!

If ever a return to Light was needed, it's now.  May the dawning of a new season shine light in dark corners everywhere -- but especially in the White House.

To Juan at the Winter Solstice

To Juan at the Winter Solstice

There is one story and one story only

That will prove worth your telling,

Whether as learned bard or gifted child;

To it all lines or lesser gauds belong

That startle with their shining

Such common stories as they stray into.

Is it of trees you tell, their months and virtues,

Or strange beasts that beset you,

Of birds that croak at you the Triple will?

Or of the Zodiac and how slow it turns

Below the Boreal Crown,

Prison to all true kings that ever reigned?

Water to water, ark again to ark,

From woman back to woman:

So each new victim treads unfalteringly

The never altered circuit of his fate,

Bringing twelve peers as witness

Both to his starry rise and starry fall.

Or is it of the Virgin's silver beauty,

All fish below the thighs?

She in her left hand bears a leafy quince;

When, with her right hand she crooks a finger, smiling,

How many the King hold back?

Royally then he barters life for love.

Or of the undying snake from chaos hatched,

Whose coils contain the ocean,

Into whose chops with naked sword he springs,

Then in black water, tangled by the reeds,

Battles three days and nights,

To be spewed up beside her scalloped shore?

Much snow if falling, winds roar hollowly,

The owl hoots from the elder,

Fear in your heart cries to the loving-cup:

Sorrow to sorrow as the sparks fly upward.

The log groans and confesses:

There is one story and one story only.

Dwell on her graciousness, dwell on her smiling,

Do not forget what flowers

The great boar trampled down in ivy time.

Her brow was creamy as the crested wave,

Her sea-blue eyes were wild

But nothing promised that is not performed.

Robert Graves

The turning of the year has come again and, as always, I think of this poem by Robert Graves. I encountered Graves' wild magic during my freshman year of college and his The White Goddess -- a historical grammar of poetic myth -- continues to inform my own personal mythology and haunt my writing. And I still love this poem -- with its symbols and images and meanings drawn from many lands and cultures.

(a re-post from 2008)

At the Winter Solstice

The sun's in the South, the days lengthen fast,

Soon we shall sing of the winter that's past;

But now light the candles, rejoice as they burn,

And dance our dance of the sun's return.

                                                                   

(Traditional Celtic verse)

The Season is the Reason . . . for Some of Us

Solstice! The day the sun stops its steady crawl to the south and looks northward once again. In the picture below the sun is rising at its southernmost point. The far left margin of the picture (or perhaps a little beyond) is where it will rise on the Equinox and it will travel the same distance again to rise on the Summer Solstice way over there. (Yes, I know it's the Earth moving, not the Sun but this is what it looks like. I'm using Poetic License here.)

Imagine primitive Man, especially in the northern regions, -- watching the days grow shorter and the nights grow longer and wondering where it would all end. Perhaps they thought that a spot of sympathetic magic was in order -- so they lit fires to drive away the dark and recall the sun to its duty. And we still do, in some ways, keep those fires burning against the darkness by celebrating  and giving thanks with light and fellowship and food. 

Though Christmas and Hanukkah and, perhaps, Yule are the holidays/holy days most widely celebrated at this time in my part of the world, there have been and are any number of festivities at the Winter Solstice --  honoring Mithras in Rome, Baldur in Scandinavia, Ameratsu in Japan, to name a few. (See more HERE.) Indeed, many scholars believe that December 25 was designated as Christ's birthday to compete with the Pagan festival of Sol Invictus (the triumphant Sun.)

Here in the Northern Hemisphere, dark December needs all the light it can get. The return of the Sun and the promise of another growing season ahead should speak to all. I say, the more celebrations, the merrier --- whatever your belief (or non-belief.) Solstice time belongs to everyone under the Sun. 

Statement of Faith

Despite no sign of the sun on its big day, the winter solstice,

I continue to believe . . .

. . . that the nights will shorten and the days will lengthen.