Solstice

Today is the darkest day of the year, the deepest point in this cold season of quiet and reflection.

This morning I watched the world outside my window turn from a black void into a luminous blue fantasy of dark, bare trees lined with glowing snow.  Almost before they were distinguishable, a few cardinals arrived at the sunflower seeds, and a downy woodpecker tapped away at the suet feeder, while a fat squirrel, puffed up against the cold, bounded along the branch of a pine overhead, causing an avalanche of fluffy snow.  As the light grew, the soft, dreamy blue gave way to the bright gray of a snowy winter morning.  Today, long before there is any faint whisper of spring, the sun begins to return, to gain strength--is it any wonder that so many cultures have worshiped the sun?

This is an issue of faith for me as well.  At some point in February every year, I irrationally lose heart and am unable to believe that spring will ever come, no matter what the calendar and my rational mind have to say. My patience is at an end, and every day that dawns in an icy, gray world is almost more than I can bear.  I've had thirty-three years to ponder this, and I think that it all comes down to having to face and embrace the cold and the dark, the unavoidable duality of the great Mother that I love so well the rest of the year, when she is present in her warm, nurturing, growing form.

I am, of course, hardly unique in my struggle to accept the darker side of the cosmic coin.  I am not one who memorizes poetry, but Dylan Thomas immediately pops up in my mind, bidding me to Rage, rage, against the dying of the light, and even earlier, I remember falling in love with Edna St Vincent Millay:  I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts into the hard ground.  I will stop right there--I would never dare to attempt something profound about the lessons of loss, of cold, of the bleak seasons of the heart; far greater minds than mine have spent lifetimes considering these grand conundrums.

What I have learned to accept, however, is that the duality is--above all--necessary; in order to have the light at the end, there must be the tunnel to travel through.  As a gardener, I know this; many of my carefully horded seeds and bulbs will not sprout unless they are exposed to freezing temperatures and kept away from the light--without January, June will never come.  This is a cycle that is so fundamental as to disappear within the normal rhythms of our lives--how long would I last without the daily dark oblivion of a good night's sleep? Just because it is easier to celebrate while I am embraced by the warmth of a breezy, sunny spring day (or impassioned by a wild, gusty autumn evening) doesn't mean that I can deny the cleansing power of the icy wind, or forget to value the generosity that rises in my heart as I scatter seeds in the snow for my furred and feathered sisters and brothers.

I have never formally observed the solstice.  But last night Jason's new snow boots were delivered to our door, and, happily, Mother Nature cooperated with yet another snow fall, filling the night with fat, fluffy flakes swirling down to blanket the world.   Eager as children to try out a new toy, we bundled up and went outside, down the steps and driveway, to stand in the middle of our empty street.

Our chatter died away, snuffed out by the overwhelmingly silent night and the still, dark trees.  Under the street light on the corner the snow floated down, softening the sharp edges of the world, dusting my hair with glittering silver...and there, in the dark and the cold, Jason's hand in mine, all at once my heart overflowed with gratitude for such beauty and such perfect peace.

Happy winter...happy Christmas...happy solstice.