Winter Solstice

 

It's been a year since the great Mayan apocalypse of 2012 and I'm still here to write about it, so I guess we can breathe easy and celebrate yet another solar event. Winter Solstice is the shortest day or the longest night of the year ... in the northern hemisphere anyway. While David is enjoying long days and hot weather in Adelaide, back here in Boston it gets dark at 4pm and it's mighty cold and bleak.

Though the winter/summer solstice was actually on 21 December, Lin's earth-centered group and pagan friends celebrated a bit later, so everyone could get together. They welcomed me warmly as usual as they ritually ushered out the darkness and short days of winter and welcomed the lengthening days to come. Though it's not quite noticeable yet, the sunset is a minute or two later each week. On the 21st, we had 9 hours 4 minutes and 40 seconds of light in Boston and today we're already up to 9 hours 6 minutes and 17 seconds of daylight. We're really making progress.

People have been celebrating the sun's annual journey for millennia ... solstices, equinoxes and all the smaller milestones in between. The pagan Wheel of the Year is especially good at acknowledging and celebrating the sun's odyssey from the rebirth of Spring to the dead of Winter. Each has its own time and reason.

Unlike the solstice group, however, I do not intend to wait around until springtime and summer in Boston to enjoy longer days. I hop on a plane to Australia in just seven days where the warm, long summer days (and David) are waiting for me.

On the Fourth Day of Christmas, my true love sent to me …

Four galley updates

Three e-mailed errands

Two bigger duffels

And a Christmas morning greeting on Skype