Winter Solstice

In praise of seasonal Stillness.

This morning, like every other before it, I look out at the camelia tree outside my office window, with its Kelly-green foliage that has made room for the brown crumpled maple leaves that have fallen atop it.

Trees do all they can to hold one another, don’t they? I am looking to Miss Camelia for words, for clarity, and for guidance.

I have two lamps in my office and today, the shortest and darkest day of the year, is a two lamp and overhead light day.

It is the Winter Solstice, the clockwork occasion when the sun arrests herself at a still point and I am here for it and so are you.

Wherever this missive finds you, I hope that you, too, can carve out some stillness and calm amidst the whirlwind of it all. If that seems utterly foreign to you in the nowness of your life, locate your closest grove of trees and stand amongst them so you emulate what it means to hold stillness at your core.

I’ve opened up my Advent(ish) Winter Solstice musings archives for you today. In 2022, I reflected upon the notion of Unknowing. 2021 was about a special time of day called Ughten, and in 2018, I was keenly interested in the gifts of our Unused Senses.

So, if you’re looking for some Solstice inspo replete with poems, ponderings, and practices for this auspicious day; rest assured, I’ve got you.

And so does Toko-pa Turner.

I don’t have much else, my friends, but I do love the poem below. It hinges a few glorious thoughts together.

How, if we’re not careful, we can begin to think of time as a kind of militant regime, how all the magic seems to be unfolding in the infinitesimal, how the creatures of the world have learned to hibernate, huddle, and hold faith, and how spring is always, always emerging.

If you’ve read this far, thank you, fair reader. I wish you a quiet array of gentleness today.

As for me, I will be doing some holiday baking today. Whipped shortbread, butter tarts, and a few other treats. I was looking up the etymology of the word instill (as one does) and was pleasantly surprised to learn that it carries a meaning of “drop by drop.”

That incremental sensibility fits all things baking on this rainy first day of winter, and indeed, human living itself.

Blessings of the Solstice.

Artist: Josie Wren

Winter Solstice

by James A. Pearson

It happens in a moment—
this tiny, imperceptible turning
when all at once the night
ceases its imperial advance
and the next morning promises
to dawn just a sigh earlier
than the one before.

The world still goes on dying
around it, and trying to keep itself alive.
This is not yet the spring.

But huddled in their dens,
their nests, their thick forest groves,
the creatures of the world
put all their wordless faith in this
quiet shift, dreaming songs of hope
that maybe, even now,
it’s already happened.