Winter Solstice Devotion
Past And Today
Prayers from Winter Solstice past and today ~
2024: And so today, my daughter, you are so different and so similar in equal measure to the child you were and to the child I’m sure you’ll be. But of course, that applies to your mother and I as well. And everybody, really, whether they admit it or not. And everything.
Change happens, everything stays the same, all at once, all the time and never. Days like this, it’s hard for me to get my head around who you are, where we are, where we’re going.
But I’m heartened by the fact that we’ll gain more sunlight today, a least a couple seconds. I can hold on to that. Sunlight. Three more seconds. That’ll do, baby, we can work with that.
2022: And so, today, Little Bean, we celebrate your eighth Winter Solstice, a harbinger of your birthday which arrives in about a week. We celebrate endings and beginnings, we’ve turned a corner and we stand rooted in place. Circles within circles. Balance and harmony arrives and a different chaos ensues. If you believe in such things - if you choose to celebrate Alban Arthan, Dongzhi, Sanghamitta Day, Yalda Night, Yule or just are content with a Blue Christmas - today is yet another chance to reset. To be kinder. To take account. To move outside of yourself.
Remember your place on one of 10 to the 24 hunks of rock out of 200 billion galaxies, charging around the Sun at 67,000 miles per hour, and spinning at another 1,040.
And here you are, in the middle of all that uncontained, glorious, infinite stardust distraction, singular and unique.
So, how will we spend the first day of our yearly rebirth? What will you offer the universe today?
2019: And so today, baby, your 5th Winter Solstice begins, and you and I run boldly into the short, cloudy light - devouring books about dinosaurs and puppies, plunging our hands into the frost to toss snowballs at the creeping night, howling away the short day, willing the light to come faster; saturated in the irony that the first day of winter also means we’ve turned a corner, also means the day stays longer, inch by inch, light or dark, ice or heat, your fire burns on.
2018: And so today, baby, we celebrate your 4th Winter Solstice, endings and beginnings; on the darkest day of the year, light begins to take hold. In the rain and cold - a time saturated with the dreary anticipation of three months of winter - right at that moment, today at around 5:30pm, hope will reassert control and we’ll spin on toward spring. We connect and cycle, we swirl out of reach and come back home after a time; generations, centuries, of light and dark, then light again. Circles within circles, tighter and tighter until the only circle that matters is you and me and your mother, and the lights from your fourth tree and that moment when the northern pole tilts the furthest from the Sun, and we start it all again. And again. Starting today.
2016: And so today, baby, during the Winter Solstice, when winter had its strongest influence on the frozen landscape, Germanic Norse pagans would bring entire evergreen trees into their homes. It was believed that the spirits of these massive Yule trees would inhabit their home and bless its inhabitants. The needles and cones would be burned as incense - smoke and fragrance filling the home with the protective spirit-magic of the evergreen.
Those long forgotten traditions, born out of both practicality and terror of the terrible, cold, northern European winter, feel present and immediate, baby, as you embrace our tree (your second, but your first with comprehension). I imagine how magical this must be to you, how other-worldly.
The deep groves of holiday tradition are burned into human-kind’s DNA - whether Diwali or Christmas or Ramadan or Hanukkah or your Birthday. I think of a two-year-old child, layered in wool and fur, the deep, aroma of fir swirling through her home, her parents asking the tree for blessing and protection, this symbol of life towering over her, a living Yule Tide God.
And I can’t help thinking how hundreds of years and thousands of miles and generations of conflicting culture, and time itself may separate you, but for a split second, in your eyes, twinkling there beside our own tree, she is you and you are her.
Today: And so today, my shining light, I sit upstairs in the kitchen with the adults, talking of adult things, but my soul is with you downstairs playing with your friends. Of all the voices, I can hear yours again and again. Your laughter.
What better way to celebrate your 11th Winter Solstice than surrounded by your closest friends - your tribe.
The Longest Night, a time of dreaming, of shared community, a day of remembering the cyclical nature of our lives and interconnectedness. We share cider and cookies. The fire burns. We take a moment to breathe knowing that all this will pass, and pass again, and pass again, and we’re just passing through.
You all come tearing up the stairs into the orbits of the various parents, refilling your cups, scooping a helping of sugar, whirlwinds, tornadoes, downpours, and then you’re gone. You’ll be back. Just like the sun.
We enter the new season with a few more seconds of sunshine now, eyes ahead, bravely facing light’s rebirth. Together still.
