We hope that today, and all the days that follow, will find you healthy, happy and hopeful. Although Solstice brings the longest night of the year, it also brings the assurance of days that grow longer and a new season that will arrive in 89 days, on March 20, 2022. For now we must keep hope warm on our hearths and in our hearts. I know, easier said than done, but this morning I found a quotation that helped ease my doom and gloom.
“Watching the morning break, I realize again that darkness doesn't kill the light—it defines it.”
― Embers: One Ojibway's Meditations
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| Winter Solstice: 9:59 am 12/21/21
Photo by J. Harrington
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It’s been too long since I last read Embers. It’s now in the stack of books to begin reading next year, along with whatever may end up under the tree or in my stocking, plus Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac. That’s where Leopold writes about his concept of a Land Ethic.
Ethics direct all members of a community to treat one another with respect for the mutual benefit of all. A land ethic expands the definition of “community” to include not only humans, but all of the other parts of the Earth, as well: soils, waters, plants, and animals, or what Leopold called “the land.”
It’s the emphasis on community that I believe all of US need to be more attentive too. We have forgotten just how interdependent we are. Perhaps this winter, compounded by COVID-19 and its never-ending variants, plus the consequences of climate breakdown and loss of biodiversity, and supply chain disruptions, and related matters, will help US remember how much we need each other. If we do so, and act accordingly, perhaps spring will bring about a renewal of life that exceeds our current expectations. Wouldn’t that be a wonderful, if belated, Christmas present?
The Shortest Day
by Susan Cooper
And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year’s sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, reveling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us—listen!
All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And now so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome, Yule!
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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.
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