The Darkest Dark, the Descent

~Traditional Celtic Verse ~

The sun is in the south and the days lengthen fast,
soon we shall sing of the winter that's passed;
for now light the candles and rejoice as they burn,
and dance our dance of the sun's return.

~ Solstice Meditation ~

Holiday . . . High Holy Days . . . winter Solstice . . . Yuletide Season . . . Christmas time, a time of family and friends, feasting and firelight, the sound of bells ringing out across a snowy night, the lighting of the candles, the trimming of the trees, and the turning of our thoughts upon the sacred ways of peace.

No matter what its name, this high point of the calendar has forever been celebrated in joyous and sacred ways as we bid farewell to the dark days of winter, and welcome with songs and thanks giving the bright, hopeful sun of a bright new year.

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Two lovely passages in celebration of the light. But wait -- today is for celebrating the dark, not the light. The Winter Solstice is the shortest day, the longest night, so meditations such as these are really for the next day, the day after the Solstice, right? Before the light returns, I want to celebrate the season's darkest dark, the year's descent, which is precisely why I relish every day from Mabon to Samhain to Yule.

I embrace the Winter Solstice not because it heralds the return of light but because it is the shortest, duskiest day of all, the culminating magic of increasing darkness. Instead of feeling joyful at the returning light, I am always a little sorry to bid farewell to the short dark days. It may be good that Spring is on the way, yet I always find something disheartening about the edgy new light of January, something jarring.

Perhaps feeling bereft that the darkening days are over for another year aligns with the Keatsian tendency to be "half in love with easeful death" (more on this to come).

A sunny Winter Solstice in Virginia this year,
standing under the Southern Magnolia