The Shifting Solstice
Thursday last week - the twenty first of December - was the winter solstice. It was a day with the fewest number of minutes to appreciate the sun traveling billions of miles through space and the atmosphere to touch the fuzzy skin of my face.
I live close enough to the equator that even on the solstice, the amount of daylight is still reasonable. It’s nothing like Iceland or Greenland or Newfoundland or any other ‘land’s whose names sound cold and who have been in constant dark for weeks.
The darkness feels like a anchor rooting us into a fuller appreciation of light. Because without the lack of light, it’s harder to understand just how many bright minutes exist on its opposite. On the summer solstice, we’ll have basketfuls of those minutes and they will spill out onto the pavement and we might not even bother to pick them up. They will be pennies in a world of hundred dollar bills.
“Maybe the solstice’s dark is a thin place like the Celts talk about, where the barrier between the earthly and the divine has holes. ”
The winter solstice feels like a time to listen and to sit beside the mystery in the stark landscape. The summer solstice feels like a time to throw my arms wide and add something to the shimmering soundscape. In that time of rich color, there’s so much light so we see and at least feel like we understand.
Maybe the solstice’s dark is a thin place like the Celts talk about, where the barrier between the earthly and the divine has holes. The kind of place where if I touched the curtain and so did someone on the other side, our hands would be separated by the barest layer of gauze. Assuming, of course, that it’s a human on the other side. Maybe it’s the universe. Maybe if I rest my head against that pockmarked barrier in the dark evening, a bit of the wisdom floating around in space would transfer to me by osmosis. Maybe I could understand something about myself I might not have the previous Wednesday.
“It seemed like a I was undrowning myself in the light and redrowning myself in the dark. But not the bad kind.”
On the twenty first of December, it was still dark when I awoke. Not dark-dark, but the kind that shows the day is just stretching its arms. I did too. We matched, the earth and I, for a moment. I laid with my son for ten minutes to help him work his way into the day too. Then I stood up, shrugged into my coat, and stepped out into the cold.
I could see my breath as I walked the circle of our neighborhood block, stopping at the top of the hill to watch the sun turn the sage-and-snow covered hills pink. Then the undersides of the clouds followed, like upside down cakes being frosted ever thicker.
A few months ago I had been in that very spot while listening to a poem and its seminal line came to me again: “undrown yourself.” It seemed like I was un-drowning myself in the light and re-drowning myself in the dark. But not the bad kind.
And so I had arrived at the thin place in the late dawn on the shortest day of the year.
Inspired by events in Summit County, Utah
on the land of the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone and the Ute Indian Tribe.