The day begins with morning sun slanting through a mist reminiscent of a fine, silver snow falling across the neighbor's lawn. The light has drifted south into a notch between the houses before filtering through the oaks which jealously clutch their leaves until spring. The evening promises to be humid, the air thick, penetrating and chill. The sun reflects off a dampened driveway that could be coated with ice, setting fire to a normally shadowed corner of the room.
Behind the house, snowbird starlings perch atop the power lines wing to wing, slowly nudging each other out from the center. First one, then another seeks a more prestigious position that chases down the line like the ripples of a rumor. At the end, the least becomes first as he circles below and sends another murmur of a conversation through his lesser peers. One line down, the final outcast takes wing which startles the flock into flight. They spring to the air as one, wheeling across the sky, their shadows by the hundreds speckling the grass like the shade of a thick-trunked maple on a windy day. After a time they resettle, content for a moment until one covets his neighbor's place and the jostling begins again.
The winter solstice is our high holiday. For us, the day is elemental, composed of fire and water, earth and air, and spirit. Candles throw back the darkness of our troubles. The lake reflects the sunset as we reflect upon the year. The stone out front stands only slightly more weathered like a sentinel and reminder. The wind echoes our transgressions and whispers its forgiveness. We fill our glasses with a measure of each, the mixture reawakening our souls after their long slumber, healing any damage like a balm.
Like the starlings, we observe rituals that onlookers may not always understand as we send forth our desire for a better year ahead. Such wishes are the gifts we sometimes share with others, wisps of parchment fitted into the cracks of a wall, stones thrown at a pillar to beat back temptation, lights floated down a river to wash away our sins, votives flickering in a nave in remembrance of our dead. Symbols and ceremonies that fill the emptiness we sometimes feel, reminding us that we're human. In community or solitude, such prayers populate this longest night. Like the constellations and wandering stars, together they are bright enough to guide us once we let our eyes adjust, like the lone lamp upon our stove burning through the night.
Whatever the light that guides you on your winter celebrations, we hope that it, like your Solstice, remains warm and bright.
© 2007 Edward P. Morgan III
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