The Season Holds Its Breath

Today, the darkest day of the year. The scene from my window supports that idea: outside it is a barren landscape of grey and white, the skim-milk sky reflecting last night's dusting of snow, the sun nowhere to be seen. Often Idaho winter days are like this, a perpetual twilight from daybreak to nightfall. It is pretty, in its own severe, desaturated way, if you can get past the bleakness.

I never understood the visceral appeal of the winter solstice until I started spending my winters in Idaho. Whatever it was that made ancient pagan societies declare today one of their high holy days, I wasn't sure.  But this year, as the December calendar has crept slowly towards this darkest day, I think I understand. After months of dwindling sunlight and encroaching darkness, today marks the turning point: tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, we will witness the slow return of the light.

I also like the fact that the solstice falls four days before Christmas: four days before the day on which we celebrate the true return of Light.

That is something to celebrate.

These last weeks have been weeks of chaos, of uncertainty, of busyness, of laughter, of tears, of creative pursuits, of preparations. Much of this hasn't translated well to blogging. Some of the things going on in our life right now are personal, not the kinds of things you shout to the world. Some of it has just been purely the fact that so much of my creative energy has gone towards baking and wrapping and ordering and painting and gluing and doing all the other things necessary to ready our home (and myself) for the Christmas holiday. Some of it has been that I've been sick this week and alternated between long bouts of lying on the couch and quick, frantic trips into town to get the last-minute preparations completed.

But this morning, on the dawn of the year's darkest day, I couldn't help sitting down to spend a few minutes in quiet reflection.

Today seems like a day that deserves it.