Happy Solstice

Today is the Winter Solstice and I’m feeling a lack of ceremony. From an Earth bound perspective, it is the day of the least daylight in the Northern Hemisphere. From an inertial perspective, the earth continues on its journey around the sun, but but the relative angle of axis shifts. But just noting the nature of the astronomical event doesn’t really do it for me.

What does the solstice mean? The solstice is one of the big cycles that humans have marked over the years. It is one that all cultures seem to have noted in one form or another. The days get longer, for those of us up North things will gradually warm again, spring will eventually come (hopefully we will get a lot more snow before it does!)

For temperate climates, winter was always a scary time. Poeple wondered if they would survive, would the food run out? Even in good harvest years they could not know in advance how harsh or long the winter would be, so there was always an element of uncertainty.

So, what to do? Have a party, of course. It’s our way, apparently. In ancient times, the people of Britain (my ancestors supposedly), would celebrate with bonfires and feasting. The fire, an obvious symbol of warmth and light, gave them hope in the darkest and coldest time of year- the feasting, well, that seems a bit obvious.

Since it was a celebration that marked the passage of time and season, it was also an opportunity to mark changes in the community. Young people who had passed into adulthood during the year were recognized, couples intending to marry were seen in public together (I always liked the bronze age tradition of the new couple jumping hand in hand over the fire- risky, but cool) and often leadership changes in the tribe were cemented.

We live in a culture that is really separated from seasons and cycles in many ways. We can eat pretty much anything we want all year round, and with modern travel many of us are not even confined by the weather in the way we once were. Few of us ever hunt or gather in any meaningful way.  Our houses keep us safe, our jobs are rarely weather dependent. We live  unplugged from the planet that keeps us alive (and plugged into oh so many other things).

When we are outside, it is in the form of recreation, which is great, but often seems to treat the world around us as more a source of amusement than the source of life that it is. In this model, the natural cycles are an accessory, and an optional one at that. We move from ski season to whitewater to cycling like we were going from one amusement ride to another. For many of us this is a way to connect with the world around us, and I don’t mean to undervalue that at all. But the recreation part makes it easy to avoid the nature part- the technology of the recreation, skis, bikes, boats, becomes the focus, and the world we are moving in become the scenic back drop.  And nothing in the recreation acknowledges the intimate relationship we are having with the world (whether we know it or not).

But you can’t escape the length of the day. Most of us notice how short light is right now. It’s dark when I leave for work. It’s almost dark when I get home. I live at about 36 degrees north now. I Grew up at about 44 degrees north, and have lived much farther north than that. When I was in high school it was dark when I got to school, and dark when I got out of wrestling practice in the evening. Now, the sun is setting by the time I get home most days.

I spent a large chunk of my early adulthood working outside year round. In Alaska, on the solstice, I could sit outside my tent within earshot of the Kenai River, and read in the middle of the night. In December, at the exact same spot, with the blue river buried in a thick coat of ice, the sun peered over the southern ridge-line at about 10:30 in the morning, and disappeared at about 2:30 in the afternoon. The tradeoff was that the long nights were often filled with amazing Northern Lights displays.

When you spend the whole day , or all the daylight that’s available, outside, it feels like you wrung the whole value out of the day. Some of the bast days I have ever had were days where I saw the sun rise and set. Not just an awareness of those events, but actually bearing witness to them because I was outside, fully present and participating in the spinning of the planet. Many of those days were days of hunting and fishing, or travel in the backcountry, days where I was fully in touch with the pulse of the earth under me, the universe over and around me.

But it is tough to find a good ceremony in these modern times. I gave some though to having a big bonfire in the backyard, but I wondered if the neighbors might complain. So I’m observing my own quiet ritual today. Tonight, after dark, I might spend a few moments outside stargazing. I’ll give a prayer of thanks for our garden, now covered in snow, and hope that it’s ready for another summer after its winter rest. And like everyone else, I’ll be very happy to see the days start getting longer again.

Tags: solstice