25 December 23 WINTER SOLSTICE 2023

Thursday 21 December 10:27 p.m.

If you are reading this post on the appointed day – Monday, 25 December, I hope you have alternate activities to enjoy, and that you are indeed enjoying them. But then, maybe you revel reading Wannaskan Almanac posts – just the thing after an over-stuffing meal has made its way into the center of your G.I. tract. If you are reading this post sometime after 25 December, however, you missed a different holi/holy day. Last week on 21 December you most likely ignored a less-celebrated day, some say also key on the calendar but less so than the 25th. That other day was Thursday 21 December at 10:27 p.m. Hurrah for the Winter Solstice 2023!

Before and to some extent after the original 25 December, Winter Solstice was a big deal. A significant number of people still treat it as particularly special. And one need not be Wiccan or a tiny deity to partake in the celebration.

The Winter Solstice marks the shortest day and the longest night of the year. The northern and southern hemispheres each have two solstices per year, winter and summer, June and December, but reversed in season, i.e., winter solstice in the North coincides with Summer Solstice in the South. So gracious of the astronomical dynamics making for complementary seasons in Earth’s journey around the Sun.

Note that the Solstices are first and foremost astrological phenomena. They are authentically real in the workings of the solar system. No doubt, the “big deal” made of these days marked as longest\shortest and equal (equinox, a subject for a future post, perhaps).

With that brief introduction, please enjoy our poetic offerings, no matter the date you are reading. If the sun is out and temperatures permit, perhaps bundle up as needed, go outside and praise the Sun’s rising and setting. Some famous pens wait for you below; Mary Oliver for one.

POEMS 

HAIKU 5

by Steve Watkins

Sun is sitting low 

The air is bitingly crisp 

O Winter Solstice

TO KNOW THE DARK

by Wendell Berry

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.

To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,

and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,

and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.

Wendell Berry

THE SHORTEST DAY   

by Susan Cooper

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 so do we, here, now,

This year and every year.

Welcome Yule!

White Eyes

by Mary Oliver

In winter

all the singing is in

         the tops of the trees

          where the wind-bird

with its white eyes

shoves and pushes

         among the branches.

          Like any of us

he wants to go to sleep,

but he’s restless—

         he has an idea,

          and slowly it unfolds

from under his beating wings

as long as he stays awake.

         But his big, round music, after all,

          is too breathy to last.

 So, it’s over.

In the pine-crown

         he makes his nest,

          he’s done all he can.

I don’t know the name of this bird,

I only imagine his glittering beak

         tucked in a white wing

          while the clouds—

which he has summoned

from the north—

         which he has taught

          to be mild, and silent—

thicken, and begin to fall

into the world below

         like stars, or the feathers

               of some unimaginable bird

that loves us,

that is asleep now, and silent—

         that has turned itself

          into snow.

AN OLD MAN’S WINTER NIGHT

by Robert Frost

All out-of-doors looked darkly in at him

Through the thin frost, almost in separate stars,

That gathers on the pane in empty rooms.

What kept his eyes from giving back the gaze

Was the lamp tilted near them in his hand.

What kept him from remembering what it was

That brought him to that creaking room was age.

He stood with barrels round him—at a loss.

And having scared the cellar under him

In clomping there, he scared it once again

In clomping off—and scared the outer night,

Which has its sounds, familiar, like the roar

Of trees and crack of branches, common things,

But nothing so like beating on a box.

A light he was to no one but himself

Where now he sat, concerned with he knew what,

A quiet light, and then not even that.

He consigned to the moon—such as she was,

So late-arising—to the broken moon

As better than the sun in any case

For such a charge, his snow upon the roof,

His icicles along the wall to keep;

And slept. The log that shifted with a jolt

Once in the stove, disturbed him and he shifted,

And eased his heavy breathing, but still slept.

One aged man—one man—can’t keep a house,

A farm, a countryside, or if he can,

It’s thus he does it of a winter night.

Background

Since prehistory (possibly as ancient as the Neolithic Age), the Winter Solstice has been a significant time of year in many cultures and has been marked by festivals and rituals. For those who honor these astronomical events, they symbolize the symbolic death and rebirth of the Sun. The gradual waning of daylight hours is reversed and begins to grow again. Some ancient monuments such as Newgrange, Stonehenge, ad Cahokia Woodhenge are aligned with the sunrise or sunset on the Solstice. 

Nearly every ancient culture had myths surrounding the return of light after the winter solstice. As the sun coursed lower in the sky, it seemed to ancient peoples that the sun might disappear forever. To encourage the sun to return, bonfires were built, gifts for the gods were hung from the branches of pine trees, and evergreen plants were brought indoors to symbolize everlasting life. If it sounds a bit like Christmas, it’s because many pagan ceremonies were overlaid with Christian holidays, resulting in the Christmas of today for many cultures.

Exploration 1: Do you have any feelings about the Winter Solstice being celebrated so close to 25 December?

Exploration 2: Would the additional celebration of the Solstices in December add, detract, or make no difference in the spirit of the season?

Exploration 3: There is a tradition of making a wish at the Winter Solstice, of burning pieces of paper with wishes or affirmations written on them. When creating a Winter Solstice candle, you will infuse the molten wax with your wish or intent and release it with the burning of the candle.

What is your view on this practice: good / bad / indifferent / other. Please explain, if you wish.

A Final Tad of Celebration – You’ll never guess where.

Midwinter Day, or Midwinter, is an annual celebration held across Antarctica on the day of the southern Winter Solstice (June 20 or 21). It is the continent's primary cultural holiday. It is a celebration for personnel overwintering at Antarctic research stations, although some people off the continent observe it as well.

In 1898, the crew of the Belgica were the first to spend Midwinter Day in Antarctica, although there was no celebration to commemorate it. The tradition of Midwinter celebration is most often credited to Robert Falcon Scott and the crew of the Discovery Expedition who, on June 23, 1902, observed "mid-winter festival" in a deliberate imitation of Christmas. The crew cooked and ate Christmas food, decorated the quarters in a "Christmasy" appearance, and opened Christmas presents which they had brought down with them and saved for this occasion. Later celebrations no longer imitated Christmas, but established Midwinter Day as a holiday in its own right.

Following the establishment of several year-round stations in Antarctica after World War II, many more people began to winter over in Antarctica. Midwinter Day became a continent-wide event, although stations varied in the degree and manner in which they celebrated.