Shifting towards the light

(a message we usually send out about this time each year, tinkered with appropriately for the current time - thought it should go out to the meh community as well)

To friends old and new, lost and found, departed and newly arrived:

Annie Dillard wrote once about wondering what it must have been like, at that gray dawn of human awareness, when our distant mothers & fathers sat shivering on a rock and first consciously realized that soon the days would be getting longer and warmer and that spring would eventually return;

The Winter solstice* is Monday at 2:02 AM local (Pacific) time, with these nights the longest of the year and the precursor to when the days start getting longer. That evening it will be accompanied by a “Great Conjuncture” of Jupiter and Saturn in the western sky.

Sunrise Monday is scheduled for 7:22 AM around these parts - no delay is expected, regardless of what the Attorneys General of various states may have to say about it.

The paradigm of the shift of light and its accompanying themes of regeneration & renewal: a time to get out (or at least up) and show your appreciation for the macro-level systems that make this whole thing work - the awareness that the shift is more than from just dark to light, but ever so steadily forward - now more so than ever.

If something as massive as the earth can shift out of darkness, so will we, so must we … You can attach whatever significance you want to it and express it however you wish - no organization has the franchise.

So hold those close to you (and hold in your heart those socially distanced) & celebrate in the ways of your culture, your religion, your being - honor the festivals of the season, attend services, hold vigil through the longest of nights, go to the beach and call back the sun, light a candle for your 4th Chakra, bang a drum for the return of the light, ask the cosmic hot dog vendor to “make you one with everything” or flip a light switch and give reluctant thanks for your electrical power provider.

Whichever, just be assured that the basics are still working

and that our part of the deal for being aware of it -

is to take care of it.

best of the season to you & all of yours

stolicat(s)

• solstice comes from Latin solstitium, from sol, “sun” and -stitium, “a stoppage” - standing-still sun.