Winter Solstice 2022

We have arrived at the Winter Solstice, the tipping point where we in the N. Hemisphere mark the point where the earth will begin to rotate back to the sun’s full exposure. The Winter Solstice marks the longest night and the shortest day of the year. While our modern calendar denotes it as the first day of winter, there are those of us from the time of the ancients that mark it as a time of hope and new beginnings as the light returns each day, bit by bit.

Winter Solstice

On this longest night
we hover on the brink of change
plants shudder in their sleep
animals dream
as do we
for the brightening of the coming days

and a poem from my friend and poet Bethany Lee

Assembling at Solstice

Every year
your soul remembers
your first time here
on the dark side of the sun
How you wondered
beyond language
at this descent into night



Your mothers sang you the songs of joy
dipped tapers 
lit wicks against despair 
Your fathers polished harnesses
by firelight, quietly
trusting in reaping’s return
These are the days for polishing
for trusting and for singing
for gathering the wisdom 
of those who make their lives by hand
These are the days for stories by candle
of lamps that stayed burning
of stars in the sky
of new life coming always 
into the unexpected places
like snowbanks and stables 
and endings and springtime 
Alone our souls remember the darkness
Together we summon and kindle the light

Bethany Lee



 
Happy solstice everyone!