The Turning of the Year

 We're having a Winter Solstice bonfire tonight at Prairie Hill. Our common house was already scheduled with something else for the two nights closest to this cosmic event, and it was too cold then to do something outdoors. But today it is much warmer (in the mid-forties!) and perfect for an outdoor bonfire. I don't know about others here, but I need this focus on something much bigger than ourselves. When I look at the news, it is hard not to be shocked by how our species has gotten so screwed up! It is the Christmas season, but what people are doing in the name of Christianity in our country is making me recoil. And then I over-react and don't want to hear the Christmas carols that I've loved all my life. I imagine I'll love these beautiful carols again, but right now I need to go back further in our history. Humans started celebrating the Winter Solstice over 10,000 years ago in Neolithic times. Ancient cultures were much more connected to the rhythms of the earth, and they had ways of charting the alignment of the Sun to our planet. At Stonehenge, the precise time of the sunset was evident. It showed the turning of the year, when days would start being longer, the return of the Light. And to these people, that was a magnificent and celebratory event. 

In our modern times, with electricity and streetlights and all the modern trappings of culture, we do notice that dark comes earlier in the days in autumn. We do notice that in spring, our days are longer. But our dependency on the sun is less evident. Yet the alignment of the earth and sun are critical to our lives. Tonight I want to celebrate this symbolic rebirth of light. We will sit around a bonfire with drums and shakers and songs. People can celebrate the new year ahead by throwing into the fire anything symbolizing the year past, and focus on new beginnings. I always light the bonfire with pages from my old journals. Writing has always been a tool to help me figure out my place in the world, my direction. But when someone I knew published his wife's journals when she died (journals she didn't want anyone to read), I decided it made more sense to let them go regularly. This is a symbol of me traveling on, with the help I had writing these pages, but their assistance was in the moment, and they are not written for anyone else. Just me.

I like to think of our ancestors sitting around their own fires on this longest night of the year, with hopeful hearts and often feasting and laughing, celebrating the return of the light. To many of these people, there was an awareness of seeds resting underground, getting ready for more light and warmth, so they can germinate in the spring. Ancient people were so much more dependent on and connected to the seasons, to the movements of the earth and sun. They couldn't run down to the corner grocery store for food. They couldn't just turn on a light switch to brighten their home. Their food and warmth were much more primitive, though that word has evolved to mean something unfortunate to us. To them, it was just what was. They were smart and resourceful. They just lived in earlier times when all the inventions we have since produced had not come yet. I wonder how many of us could survive without these now! It would be a stretch!

So tonight at Prairie Hill, we'll be sitting together around a blazing fire on an unseasonably warm night, looking at the stars, being aware of the sun fading on the horizon, celebrating our connection with Nature's cycles. The days will slowly start to get longer, we'll start getting excited about our gardens, and one day the weather will become warmer and seeds will start to sprout. Leaves will start to come out on the trees. Geese will start flying back from the south. Hibernating animals will peek out of their burrows. And the year will keep turning, winter to spring to summer to fall, and on and on. 

Winter Solstice

Leaving a red-orange glow

on the western horizon,

the sun sinks slowly down

until darkness covers us all.

This is the longest night of the year, 

the time when our ancestors

lit fires to persuade the gods

to begin bringing more light.

Dancing around bonfires, singing,

watching the logs’ brilliant flames,

they held witness to the sun’s path,

and willed its light to strengthen and lengthen.

These humble ancestors were earth’s creatures,

no better or worse than the deer and the birds.

Yet they understood the turning of the world,

the changing seasons that came and went.

A simpler life than ours, had these simple ancestors.

A simplicity that we need, rather than our complexity. 

Would that we could again be inspired as we

sit together watching the magic flames of a fire.