It’s the Winter Solstice today, officially the start of winter, although I suspect some of you would also argue that winter started weeks ago! But in the calendar of the earth, that day is today for us in the Northern Hemisphere. Today the earth has rotated on it’s axis the furthest away from the sun that it will get this year, if you do manage to see the sun today you might notice that it hasn’t risen very far above the horizon when compared to the summer months. Nightfall will once again come quickly, the dark claiming the light again all too soon, on this, the shortest day. There is good news however, from tomorrow the days will start to grow longer again, imperceptibly at first, maybe not even a minute a day, but the daylight will grow stronger and claim the darkness as the wheel of the year has turned once more.
Tonight there will be candles lit in my house to drive the darkness away and there will be time for quiet reflection on the year that has passed. I’ll leave you with a lovely poem, written by Susan Cooper, entitled The Shortest Day. Have a wonderful, peaceful day.
And so the shortest day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive,
And when the new year’s sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, reveling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us – Listen!!
All the long echoes sing the same delight,
This shortest day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, fest, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome Yule.
~ Susan Cooper