Tonight is the Winter Solstice. Today we gather all our candles and prepare to set the house alight.
Each year, the day begins with preparations. Like the night before a camping trip, we review our equipment, noting wear and patching holes. We wash the glass covers, add oil to the lamps, trim the wicks and clean the candle lanterns. Some only emerge from storage for this one night of the year. There is the one my mother gave us, the one from my grandmother, the ones from Karen, her friends and her sister. The one we light whenever necessary to guide wayward souls back home.
We arrange candles in clusters on counters and on tabletops, hanging lamps and lanterns from the ceiling, gathering flames anywhere away from inquisitive paws and whiskers. Candles float in a bowl in the kitchen. A few cat-proof globes adorn the dining room, others are scattered across the coffee table. The surviving Wolford from our wedding is perched atop the stove. We stake candle sconces along the front walk, a trail of flames to guide any visitors to our door.
This night from dusk to dawn no incandescents will glow within our home. No lights, no television, not even the memory of a fire we have captured on DVD. The stereo is the only electronic compromise as it cycles through a cappella music from a darker, more medieval age. There is a haunting, simple beauty in an anonymous quartet giving voice to carols and motets, chants and polyphony in soprano Middle English and alto Norman-French.
We brighten this longest night of the year in the manner of our ancestors, with candles, flame and oil. Our tradition began just under a score of years ago on a whim, an idea adopted from a more creative writer in a book no one remembers. These days, Karen has become more orthodox, more militant, unscrewing even the bulb in the refrigerator. Women are the keepers of our faith, the enforcers of our traditions.
We prepare the mead, anymore our lone batch of the year, mixing water with honey while it's still light enough to read the measures, adding the yeast before the night descends. For many years, we poured the ingredients in near darkness with only candles to light our way. Later, we will share a glass by the fire table, always sampling the fruits of the last year's tradition.
Even dinner is prepared and eaten before sunset. It was harder when we had to rush home from work to make the house ready. When we first started, we made sure we had something simple to prepare or reheat the moment we hit the door. Now, it's become a personal holiday, a festival, a feast, a celebration like any other. We roast a lamb shank with all the trimmings, a real holiday dinner, clearing off the remnants while it's still light enough to see.
At dusk we will wander out to the lake to watch the sunset. We will stand at the rail, comparing the sun's position to the other Celtic holidays throughout the year, reflecting on events that have filled the intervening spaces. We will head home at twilight, take up the matches and stick-lighter, and begin our ritual of candle lighting as soon as we return.
With all the preparations finished and the candles softly burning, we will finally have a chance to relax and reflect. A chance to breathe after another hectic year. Later, by candle-fire, we will exchange a single gift, always related to the holiday, a sconce, a lantern, something Celtic, something living.
Some time ago, we discovered that our neighbors of a more than a dozen years, who have since moved on, always thought we were Jewish. We are judged by our lack of Christmas lights, and the darkness of our home. We have no flashing icicles, no sparkling reindeer, no lighted plastic nativity, no inflatable Rudolph or Frosty or Santa. No tinny carols emanate from our yard. But every year, a wreath from Karen's sister adorns the wall beside our door. This year, another fragrant evergreen arrangement is ensconced on a table on the porch. For many years, a tree was visible in the library, lighted and shiny with antique tinsel, though it has since moved farther back in the house along with the all books. For half a dozen years, we donated our live tree to the community to be planted the park. Live, as in still living, not live as in freshly cut. And each year on the Winter Solstice, the blinds remain open as the house burns against the night.
Like every Solstice, eventually the darkness will return. One by one, the candles will be extinguished and we will be left with little but each other and the night. I do not fear the darkness; I embrace it in a way. I am more comfortable roaming thorough the house in winter than in summer, at midnight than at noon. The night is my advantage, the cloak of my disguise. I am used to seeing shapes and motion in place of clearer images. In darkness we are all once again created equal: none of us can see.
Some years, I sit down to write this message thinking I know exactly how it will end. Some years, something happens that changes that. This year it was a name, one resurfacing after more than a quarter century, one I hadn't heard since high school, contained in a brief message saying that a man my age had died, his family's holiday turned from joy to sudden grieving. All of our plans for light come to naught when a candle burns out prematurely.
Our kind thoughts to all of you no matter your holiday traditions, whether re-enacted in joy or private sorrow. However long the candles last, may they keep your Solstice warm and bright.
© 2009 Edward P. Morgan III
