Welcome Yule

Druids celebrate today as Alban Arthan.

Joni Mitchell has written beautifully about an aspect of the solstice cycle in The Circle Game.

May the coming year fill your life with warmth and love, beauty and wisdom, and peace.

winter’s “bluebirds” of happiness

Photo by J. Harrington

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.

It’s only 350 days ’til next Christmas

The Christmas tree has been denuded. Brittle, pointy, holly clusters are in the trash. Memories of younger days before empty nester time are floating rampant, like the ghosts of Christmas past, which they are! This year’s deconstruction went pretty smoothly with limited cursing by the man of the house as ornaments refused to be removed from branches. One of the all-time better Christmas albums, Mary Chapin Carpenter’s Come Darkness, Come Light: Twelve Songs of Christmas, lent an appropriate background to the day’s activities.

all gone goodbye for now

Photo by J. Harrington

Between now and Valentine’s we’ll celebrate MLK day and groundhog day and, with luck, an extended January thaw. But, for a few days, the magic of Christmas will be conspicuous by its absence, unless we learn to keep the feeling of Christmas in our hearts all year round. How hard could that be?

carrying the light of Christmas to Valentine's

Photo by J. Harrington

We had advent and Yule candles this year and we’re going to carry over two of them, the red ones in the hurricane lamps, until Valentine's. The cheery flames at dinner will serve as reminders of yule time and help warm our hearts through the cold days ahead. It’s not everything, but it’s a start.

Taking Down the Tree

By Jane Kenyon

"Give me some light!" cries Hamlet's

uncle midway through the murder

of Gonzago. "Light! Light!" cry scattering

courtesans. Here, as in Denmark,

it's dark at four, and even the moon

shines with only half a heart.

The ornaments go down into the box:

the silver spaniel, My Darling

on its collar, from Mother's childhood

in Illinois; the balsa jumping jack

my brother and I fought over,

pulling limb from limb. Mother

drew it together again with thread

while I watched, feeling depraved

at the age of ten.

With something more than caution

I handle them, and the lights, with their

tin star-shaped reflectors, brought along

from house to house, their pasteboard

toy suitcases increasingly flimsy.

Tick, tick, the desiccated needles drop.

By suppertime all that remains is the scent

of balsam fir. If it's darkness

we're having, let it be extravagant.

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The gift of sunrise

Some years the local deer have, by this time in November, begun snacking on our Halloween jack-o-lanterns. Not this year. They’re snow covered and unnibbled. We’ve seen few deer or turkeys this year and have no idea what’s triggered the changed foraging patterns. Have home ranges changed? We don’t know. Perhaps now that firearms deer season is over we’ll see a few more whitetails. Or, not. In any case soon it will be time to dump the pumpkins under the pear tree and replace them with yule greenery. Eventually the deer or other wildlife will tidy up the pumpkin pile.

jack-o-lanterns nibbled to death  by  deer

Photo by J. Harrington

The pond up the road is now covered with skim ice on the east side of the road but not west of the road. Although we haven’t ever waded either pond, we presume the difference is because east of the road the water is more shallow and consequently loses heat more quickly. We’ll keep our eyes on both pools to see how ice-in proceeds.

Since we’re entering the season of Thanksgiving and yule tide, I’m going to file the news I learned today under he heading of early Christmas present. A book by one of my favorite poets, Joy Harjo, is the NEA Big Read in the St. Croix Valley. An American Sunrise is the volume of Harjo’s poems that provides the themes for next year’s Art Space’ programming. I’m looking forward to seeing how it plays out and if and where I might want to be involved, over and above rereading the book.

An American Sunrise

By Joy Harjo

We were running out of breath, as we ran out to meet ourselves. We

were surfacing the edge of our ancestors’ fights, and ready to strike.

It was difficult to lose days in the Indian bar if you were straight.

Easy if you played pool and drank to remember to forget. We

made plans to be professional — and did. And some of us could sing

so we drummed a fire-lit pathway up to those starry stars. Sin

was invented by the Christians, as was the Devil, we sang. We

were the heathens, but needed to be saved from them — thin

chance. We knew we were all related in this story, a little gin

will clarify the dark and make us all feel like dancing. We

had something to do with the origins of blues and jazz

I argued with a Pueblo as I filled the jukebox with dimes in June,

forty years later and we still want justice. We are still America. We

know the rumors of our demise. We spit them out. They die

soon.

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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

'Twas the day before the night before the night before Christmas

Let us begin by wishing a very Happy Birthday! to Robert Bly, Minnesota's first (legally) official poet laureate. We append a wish for Many Happy Returns, and note that, this year past, we enjoyed reading, cover to cover, his recently published Collected Poems.

some presents go on, rather than under, the tree

Photo by J. Harrington

In many homes anticipation and excitement will build over the next forty-eight hours or so, only to be dissipated in a wave of delights or disappointments, depending on what's been left in carefully hung stockings and under well-decorated trees. But we all know it isn't about how much we do or do not get to add to our collection of "stuff." At least those of us familiar with the story of the humble origins embodied in the original Christmas or those who've learned from the Grinch who endeavored to steal Christmas know this celebration is about the size of our hearts.

“And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow,
stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.”

Christmas is a time for angels to visit

Photo by J. Harrington

Returning to Bly's Collected Poems, we find a slightly different perspective on "What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more." From his volume Morning Poems, we find

A Christmas Poem

by Robert Bly

Christmas is a place, like Jackson Hole, where all
     agree
To meet once a year. It has water, and grass for
     horses;
All the fur traders can come in. We visited the place
As children, but we never heard the good stories.

Those stories only get told in the big tents, late
At night, when a trapper who has been caught
In his own trap, held down in icy water, talks; and a
     man
With a ponytail and a limp comes in from the edge of
     the fire.

As children we knew there was more to it—
Why some men got drunk on Christmas Eve
Wasn't explained, nor why we were so often
Near tears nor why the stars came down so close,
Why so much was lost. Those men and women
Who had died in wars started by others,
Did they come that night? Is that why the Christmas
     tree
Trembled just before we opened the presents?

There was something about angels. Angels we
Have heard on high Sweetly singing o'er
The plain. The angels were certain. But we could not
Be certain whether our family was worthy tonight.

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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
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On the eve of Winter Solstice

If life were a movie, the next few days would be the trailer for late February, early March. That's when average daytime highs once again reach and exceed freezing. We're considering this December thaw an early Yuletide present. It goes nicely with the fact that, starting the day after tomorrow, daylight becomes microscopically longer each day. Later today or early tomorrow it will be time to see if the portable fire pit can be made portable, rather than frozen in place, so we can enjoy a Solstice fire in the drive. Alternatively, if we keep the flames small enough, we can leave it where it is. Come Spring we'll get some pavers to put under the fire pit legs that keep freezing into the ground. We could use the tractor to loosen it, but the fire pit may not survive that exercise.

Winter Solstice, 2018

Photo by J. Harrington

Yesterday we touched on the Center for Humans and Nature "Kinship Project." That seems to fit well with our growing interest in zen and druidry. Although we suspect that Christmas will bring a new collection of unread books, we're getting a sense that this Winter it's time to reread some books that have been on our shelves for awhile. Among those are Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants and Gathering Moss. We hope, over the next couple of weeks, to lay out some strategies, activities and priorities for next year. High on that list will be a three sisters garden we never got around to planting this year and doing a better job of journaling so we'd be able to tell if it was the weather, laziness, competing priorities or none of the above that hindered us this year. We have the seeds and a vague memory about needing to get the Mantis tiller serviced so we could create mounds with it. This all brings back memories of a former landlord who often noted it wasn't doing the work that was so much trouble, it was getting organized and ready to do the work that took the most time and effort.

Anyhow, a Christmas present we promised ourselves is that next year we will bring (I almost wrote "try to bring" but, as Yoda teaches us "Do or do not. There is no try!") focus and order to our scattered interests. We're making limited progress following the Taoist observation that the longest journey begins with a single step.

We wish you a warm, wonderful, and brief Winter Solstice. May your days soon grow in light and wisdom!

Winter Solstice

By Hilda Morley

A cold night crosses

our path

                  The world appears

very large, very

round now       extending

far as the moon does

                                        It is from

the moon this cold travels

                                        It is

the light of the moon that causes

this night reflecting distance in its own

light so coldly

                                          (from one side of

the earth to the other)

                                        It is the length of this coldness

It is the long distance

between two points which are

not in a line        now

                                       not a

straightness       (however

straight) but a curve only,

silver that is a rock reflecting

                                                      not metal

but a rock accepting

distance

                     (a scream in silence

where between the two

points what touches

is a curve around the world

                                                      (the dance unmoving).

new york, 1969

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Yule like this, we bet!

In our neck of the woods, the shortest day is less than a week away. Our Winter Solstice will occur at 10:19 pm CST on Saturday, December 21. Today, after resisting its purchase four or five times, we decided to honor the Solstice and bought a copy of Susan Cooper and Carson Ellis's The Shortest Day. It's nominally a children's book. At this time of year, each of us should honor our inner child as well as our outer children. The book mentions a web site and an organization that performs the poem on which the book is based. The organization is The Revels. It's based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, our old stomping grounds. It's almost like home for the holidays time.

Also today, a Christmas present arrived early(?). We've been enjoying blue skies and sunshine since late morning. Our mood is improved about 317%. Shorter days leading up to and away from Winter Solstice can be, and often are, hard to take. Lack of sunshine has been too often compounded by cloudy days. Joni Mitchell warned us about it in her song Big Yellow Taxi:

Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone 

We have dearly missed the sun this month. In fact, to complement our heartiest endorsement of The Shortest Day, and in anticipation of days getting longer, brighter and full of peace next year, we'll share the lyrics to one of our favorite John Denver songs.

sunshine can be magical

Photo by J. Harrington

Sunshine on My Shoulders

Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy, sunshine in my eyes can make me cry.
Sunshine on the water looks so lovely, sunshine almost always makes me high.
If I had a day that I could give you, I’d give to you the day just like today.
If I had a song that I could sing for you, I’d sing a song to make you feel this way.

Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy, sunshine in my eyes can make me cry.
Sunshine on the water looks so lovely, sunshine almost always makes me high.
If I had a tale that I could tell you, I’d tell a tale sure to make you smile.
If I had a wish that I could wish for you, I’d make a wish for sunshine for all the while.

Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy, sunshine in my eyes can make me cry.
Sunshine on the water looks so lovely, sunshine almost always makes me high.
Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy, sunshine in my eyes can make me cry.
Sunshine on the water looks so lovely, sunshine almost always makes me high.
Sunshine almost all the time makes me high.  Sunshine almost always…

(written by John Denver)

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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.