Spo-reflections on the Winter Solstice #20

The winter solstice, ahh bitter chill it was! 

Even the owl for all its feathers was a cold. 

The javelina limped, trembling through the frozen saguaros 

And silent was the flock in wooly fold. 

No it isn’t. It’s 20C (68F) outside and I was in Spo-shirt and shorts with sandals, putting up some outside lights.  It’s hard to get into the solstice spirit when it’s still possible to keep the doors and windows open. But solstice isn’t so much about the temperature but the light, or the lack thereof. It’s the darkest day of the year, at least in the northern hemisphere, and my Nordic blood bubbles up to observe the day and situation.  I look forward every year to composing a solstice entry. There is nothing like sitting in the gloom with only a candle to evoke Spo-reflections. 

My ancestors, some of them well over four week, didn’t sit in the dark and think about Life as they thought about Death. Do we have enough food to make it until spring time? The Sun had stopped low on the horizon, and there was worry will it return? They felt the need to help it return through ceremony. As a child I thought it haughty to imagine one can influence the Sun so. As an adult I see the value, nay necessity of ritual and how everything is connected to everything else. We may not actually command the Sun to return but it means more than just the rotation of the planet.**

These are dark times indeed, not just from the lack of daylight but lack of Light in my nation’s minds and actions. The Light in the Collective Conscious is at a very low point and it seems stuck, like the actual Sun. Like my Norse relations, I wonder what can I do to bring back the Light.  Outside it is cold and dark and I am only one person, sitting in darkness.

The solstice candle before me emits a small light but it is enough to make the Darkness not total. It’s flame evokes Hope, Hope for the return of the Sun, both in the sky and here on earth.

One of the best approaches to dark and anxious times is to focus on what you can control rather than what you cannot. What I can control is my inner Light, The Sun that is within my psyche. I can always do something to spark Light in all my deeds towards others. Despite the darkness let us bring Light back into the world.

**In Terry Prachett’s ‘Hogfather’, Death’s granddaughter Susan saves The Discworld’s Santa Claus figure, who long time ago evolved from a hog that was slaughtered on the morning of the solstice to bring back the sun. She asks Death what would have happened if she hadn’t saved him. He tells her the sun would not have risen. Then would have happened? He replies a mere ball of flaming gas would have illuminated the world. This is brilliant. Yes, the sun goes on without ritual and belief, but what’s the point?