Pagan holiday

It saddens me that the old nature-based holidays have been replaced by institutional ones, at least in this country in this era. I would much rather celebrate the seasons than gods or anniversaries of people and events, because those seasons are intensely real and current, whereas those people and events are long past or, in the case of gods, debatable.

Four holidays exist on my personal calendar: two solstices and two equinoxes, which divide the year into birth, growth, maturity, and decline -- just like life. This cycle is universal, unlike institutional holidays. The important people, gods, and events in, say, China, have nothing to do with same in the United States. How can we ever hope for universal peace if we have nothing in common to celebrate?

Regardless, right now is the three-day window that comprises my personal high holy day, the summer solstice. Fifteen-and-a-half official hours of daylight at this location; unofficially, more like 17 hours -- 4:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. -- if you count being able to see while outdoors. I’ve often been tempted to move farther north to enjoy the spectacularly long days that go with higher latitudes; however, those are balanced by spectacularly long nights, so I remain in place. For someone who measures hours of light and darkness all year long, it would be the wrong plan to seek out more darkness!

Lacking the ancient rituals that went with pagan holidays, I don’t do anything specific for this one. It would be nice to have a big bonfire or a bacchanal or some sort of celebration with fellow light-worshipers. There aren’t too many around here, so I satisfy myself by just being as awake and aware as possible, spending as much time outdoors or looking out the windows as possible, and startling people by wishing them Happy Solstice. It won’t come around for another year; meanwhile, we begin the long slide back toward 9 hours of daylight.

The decrease will become noticeable by August. The plants seem to know this, timing their birth, growth, maturity, and decline around the equinoxes and solstices. It wasn’t until we moved to Vermont that I caught a real sense solstice-as-climax. Garden perennials that grow in my home turf of Connecticut break out 1-3 weeks later here but have caught up by this date in a spurt that makes the air crackle with energy, as if the solstice is the target they all share. Up north, it’s probably so accelerated that you can see the growth if you sit still and watch. Here, you notice it the next morning, when something you observed 24 hours ago is suddenly 2 inches taller.

Then there are the birds, the sky, the colors, the position of sun and moon, and all the different indicators of the season. This year we’ve been fortunate in having good weather concurrent with the holiday, making it doubly special. I’ve been making sure to be up at 4:30 and not in bed before 9:30 so I can enjoy every minute of it!

Here comes the sun

A new year is born -- both on the calendar and in the natural world. The dates fall about ten days apart but announce the same change.

For those of us in the northern hemisphere, and especially in the northerly climes, it's hard to think of birth in the middle of winter. But this is the point where gardens begin each year. As day length increases, plants and creatures begin to stir, or at least change their behavior in subtle ways. Under the ground, roots, corms, and bulbs are processing themselves for the upcoming growth season. Aboveground, birds change their songs -- for example, by New Year's Day I'd heard the chickadee's spring call for which it is named ("dee-deeee") -- and early breeders have started courtship. Meanwhile, the seed catalogues are rolling in, allowing humans to start planning this year's garden.

I am a daylight junkie, so I count the returning minutes of light after the solstice. It creeps in asymmetrically: for a week or two, daybreak comes later while sunset seems to stay the same. But then we start to see more light on both ends of the day, and its pace of return accelerates.

On the official winter solstice, we had 8 hours and 51 minutes of daylight. Since then, we've gained 10+ minutes. So few, yet already perceptible at dawn and dusk. This starts and ends each day with joy, and helps keep my chin up during the three months of cold, snow, and ice still to come.

Carolyn Haley

Books at: http://carolynhaley.wordpress.com
Editing business at: www.documania.us

Silent night

Two aspects of living in the rural north give special poignancy to the winter holidays.

(1) Silence.
On the rare occasions when we have big snow -- just snow, no wind or sleet or any other variations of winter storm -- the world is embraced in a white velvet silence. It's a true silence, an utter silence; the only sounds come from your own clothes when you move. The surface of the world is smoothed into innocent beauty while life sleeps beneath. We get the silence for a few minutes or hours a year, maybe once every several years; two years ago, it came as a gift on the winter solstice.

(2) Darkness.
No streetlights. No neighbor's porch lights. Mostly, no headlights except your own, winding along the roads back from town. Then, suddenly, a star of Bethlehem floating in the blackness! Oh, it's somebody's holiday lights on a barn across the valley. Around a curve, a perfect Christmas tree illuminated in red, green, and white. Or perhaps a blue one. Then darkness. Around another bend, a deciduous tree's bare branches outlined in gold. Another mile of darkness, until the world leaps into blinding, blinking glow from an extravaganza of Santas and reindeers and trees and stars and snowmen and sleighs, all packed into somebody's tiny yard and so fully lit that you can almost hear the electric meter spinning. Then, back into darkness -- the opposite of snowfall, a rich, deep, inky blue that showcases every star in the heavens.

With this combination, it's hard to resist singing, "Silent night, holy night / All is calm, all is bright . . ."

Happy holidays!

Carolyn Haley

Books at: http://carolynhaley.wordpress.com
Editing business at: www.documania.us

The best week

This is it! The week we spend all year waiting for. The week embracing the summer solstice. The longest days of the year -- 15 and a half hours of official daylight, an hour more than that if you count time of light in the sky, when you can still see outside -- and the most glorious weather, the most exuberant blooming of flowers, the peak of birds and critters making babies -- the best time of the northerly year.

It passes so quickly . . . so this week demands that we look and listen and feel and appreciate and know joy. Then remember it all during the darker and colder majority of the year, until it comes around again.

So comforting to know that it will come around again!

Carolyn Haley

Author: The Mobius Striptease (e-novel, Club Lighthouse Publishing)
Open Your Heart with Gardens (nonfiction, DreamTime Publishing)
First-year blog archives at www.dreamtimepublishing.com
Editing Business: DocuMania (www.documania.us)

The true holiday

For me, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s roll into one big holiday on the winter solistice, time of the shortest day and longest night, after which days start getting longer again. In other words, “here comes the sun”!

This occurs regardless of what religion you ascribe to or calendar you follow, as it’s a phenomenon driven by the Earth’s axial tilt. Almost all cultures celebrate the solstice in one form or another and have done so since the beginning of human time.

Solstice is my Thanksgiving, when I wallow in gratitude for being warm and safe and fed and loved while winter rolls up its sleeves and gets down to business—leaving many a creature cold, endangered, starving, and alone.

Solstice is my Christmas, when I celebrate the ultimate gift—the return of light—and our creator, the universe, which is utterly reliable, relentlessly beautiful, and infinitely wondrous.

Solstice is my New Year, when I toast with loved ones the rebirth of the natural cycle, and make resolutions for the next round of seasons.

So Happy Solstice, everyone! May the new year bring peace and prosperity around the world.

Carolyn Haley

Author: The Mobius Striptease (e-novel, Club Lighthouse Publishing)
Open Your Heart with Gardens (nonfiction, DreamTime Publishing)
First-year blog archives at www.dreamtimepublishing.com