Winter Solstice 2013

"Winter Solstice 2013" - a reading (on YouTube)

We open our eyes to a pale reflection in pink and orange. A long, gray wall of fog looms at the horizon like Hadrian's last defense. As the fog emerges from the soft gray light of dawn, we feel like distant lanterns, tiny candles floating aimlessly across the water.

A gray stillness settles outside as though the world has paused for breath. Through a misty haze, the daylight silvers as the morning ages. A faded white sun hangs motionless against the brushed platinum sky, a sun-bleached sun melting to moonrise by midafternoon.

As autumn deepens into winter, dappled sunlight brushes like mist against the screen until the fog melts into rain, washing the shadow from our minds. Droplets of air condense and run down its surface, filling the spaces in between like a memory of unfallen tears.

Fiery tendrils of the setting sun send steam drifting across the water and smoke swirling among the trees as fog coalesces from twilight. The golden fog burns along the horizon like the beacon of the Hermit's lantern guiding our way forward through another umbrageous day. Come evening spheres of silver, pink and gold hang below the streetlamps and house lights, iridescent ornaments in a nighttime world of fog.

Day by day, our ink fades a little further from the page until, one morning, nothing remains of each line of our lives but the shadow of a memory. This night, we light the sacred candles. In darkness we were born of fire. Small souls, at midwinter we return to ash, awaiting Brigid’s breath at Imbolc to be reborn. Another cycle lays behind us, craggy and arthritic yet complete, even as the next one beckons, her slender finger as pale and unblemished as the promise of the coming spring.

© 2013 Edward P. Morgan III

Winter Solstice 2008

Today is the winter solstice. Last night marked the starting point of a ten-day transition to the beginning of a new year. For us it is a magical period when each moment seems to stretch and slow. It is a time of reflection and preparation, a time to celebrate and to relax.

On the morning of solstice eve, we wake to find our world obscured by fog. As we allow it to envelope us, whirlpools and eddies swirl around us, much like events of the previous year. Its tendrils caress our faces, weaving masks before our eyes, requiring us to rely on other senses. Its silver spell alternates between a blanket and a shroud, in some moments providing comfort through obscurity, in others an obstacle as we stumble our way through it by feel. Mostly, the fog acts as a veil, concealing what lies before us until we are ready to confront it. In that way, it acts a blessing.

In the translucent air, lily pads float on a glassy lake as unrippled as a pan of mercury reflecting a silver sky. Only the narrow trails behind mallards and marsh hens allow us to distinguish the water from the fog. A thin veil of marsh gnats dance in elaborate figure eights like faeries practicing school figures as they celebrate the air.

Cobwebs form strands of tinsel and dew bejeweled garlands that drape across the cypresses and red cedars, visitors in our home from previous winters that we have set free to take root in the wild for others to enjoy. As we approach, they rise like sentinels from the fog, emerging like monuments on a battlefield, reminders of our past glories and the comrades that we've lost. Upon closer examination, individual pearls of dew transpose the scene behind them, reflecting an upside down world come to rest upon its head.

After a time, the fog rises into a looming cloud in a transition as stark and steady as a gray curtain ascending, an airy barrier between clarity below and obscurity above, with only low hills and shallow valleys providing any topography between the two.

As the day grays, the fog drifts into an overcast of hammered pewter. While we prepare for dusk, distant angels of snow arrive with messages that tickle our noses, reminding us to laugh. Even our elders remember how they once had fun and are delighted to share their antics with us like the children they once were.

By twilight, a high wall of clouds rings the horizon, a seemingly insurmountable rampart. But the sun glints through a chink in its mortar like a brilliant candle blazing behind a keyhole, waiting only for us to peer inside.

On our journey home, an infrequent friend gives us an infrequent greeting, reminding us of another who recently was lost. Were we to strike a candle for every missing friend tonight, we would swim in yellow light. Beyond the windows, we erect a barrier of candles to barricade our minds against the pensive mood that begins to settle as this longest night descends. Tiny lanterns provide a beacon through the darkness as a revitalized mist seeks to infiltrate our musical celebration with melancholy, with marginal success. We leave a single sentry flickering to watch over us as we sleep.

The first day of the winter dawns with the sun capturing the barest shadow of yesterday's fog in its misty rays before they eventually burn away. With clearer eyes, we brew the mead that we hope will decant the light and magic we feel as gift to share with our fellow travelers as we stumble down the road together.

No matter how dark or obscure today might seem, we know tomorrow will dawn a little brighter as we are slowly reborn into a new cycle. Yesterday's fog was like a faerie mist bearing the gift of forgetfulness to everything it touched, unchaining us from the previous year's remembered pain. For a few days, we are light and free. The past is set aside as we focus on the future, until it, too, transitions to a memory as another cycle burns away.

As always, no matter how dim your previous day or evening, I hope your Solstice will be warm and bright.


© 2008 Edward P. Morgan III

Shards

I gaze out the window straining to capture the scene in sketches. Each sentence becomes a contour, each phrase a dark smudge of charcoal against the page. Colored pencils highlight the flame of dawn reflected beneath the clouds, or the golden aura radiating from the grass.

Do those short, sharp stokes capture the landscape before me, or do I need to spend more time shading with a flat blade of words?

Some days practice brings a steadier hand hour by hour. Today, words clog my thinking, dripping with an incessant tick, tick, tick rather than opening my mind to breathe.

As I struggle to describe a flower that makes my eyes ache, a veil of clouds thickens like the strands of mold binding the dead leaves in the garden, fading the sky a uniform white tinged with the dingy gray of old sheets drawn across its window like cheap curtains. Vivid colors dull like the ungroomed fur of an aging cat drooping across old bones.

A southern wind tinged with moisture augurs the transition from dry to humid, from cool to jungle hot. The breeze murmurs as it sways a pine, rubbing its trunk across guy wires like a rosined bow set to the untuned strings of a creaky standup bass. It becomes difficult to distinguish between distant, imaginary voices and the sounds the wind creates.

The morning slips by in slow agitation, my heart pounding against the coming change. Finally, my concentration shatters. Fragments of thoughts tumble one against the other, pulled by the same inescapable force. Each catches my attention for instant as it flashes a reflection before shading itself from the light as it spirals downward.

Routine transforms into a quest to the clear the glass daggers from my mind. A translucent film of blood stains each reflection as I grasp at it. My fingers slip and instinctively clutch tighter until the pain slices deeper and they reluctantly release the sliver which shatters further as I let it go.

Thoughts come in flashes between the ringing blows of a migraine driven through my right eye like a ten-penny nail. The shards will lay where they rest until I sweep them aside in a day or two, brooding at the lack of fractured faces staring back at me, the distorted semblance of an audience responding to my pain.


© 2007 Edward P. Morgan III