Day: December 21, 2016

Today is the darkest day, the longest day. It is the Winter solstice.

It is also the new beginning. Tomorrow is one minute longer than today, each day another minute longer after that. After darkness, light. In the country, the Winter solstice has special meaning, it marks the beginning of a new farm year, the return of the light, the look forward to Spring.

In our world, each season leads to the next. The dark times are a time of reflection, coldness, loneliness, a respite from life, rest for the land, the loss of color. The animals hug their barns and circle restlessly, they are eager for food and warm water. We are tested in these days, spiritually, emotionally, in a psychic way.  We are enveloped in darkness, our souls turn inward.

The Winter solstice is an astronomical phenomenon, it marks the day with the shortest period of daylight and the longest night of the year.

In the Northern hemisphere this is the December solstice, in the Southern Hemisphere this is the June solstice. In some cultures, this is a celebration of mid-winter, in other cultures it is seen as the beginning of winter. It is the day of the earliest sunset and the the latest sunrise – the darkest night, the shortest day.

Tomorrow marks the return of the light. Spring follows winter, we will turn our eyes and souls outward again and bow to Mother Earth, and thank her for the new season and the return of the light. For the pagan culture, this has always been a great holiday, a recognition of rebirth, involving holidays, festivals, gatherings and witchy rituals.

The Longest Night is steeped in history and ritual.

At the root was the ancient fear that the failing light would never return unless human beings intervened with sacrifice, vigils and pagan celebrations.  Ancient cultures built Astronomical Observatories – tombs, temples, cairns, to align with the solstices and equinoxes, to summon back the light. Life depended on the progress of the seasons. Starvation was most common during the first months of the winter, January through April, known throughout the world as the famine months.

It was in the days after the solstice that the concept of birth and rebirth, of new beginnings was conceived.

So in many ways, this is my holiday, and Maria’s holiday, we are born again. We worship the light, and we celebrate the return of the light, and of the land, and of the trees and gardens, beginning tomorrow. And I give thanks for the food and shelter we have, luxuries unknown throughout so much of human history.

We are fond of lamenting what we have lost and what we are afraid of losing, but this is a holiday to celebrate what we have to tide us through the dark days. We may celebrate the light, but we no longer fear the darkness, it is not eternal.

So tonight, I await the New Beginning. The cup is full. The Return Of Color And Light. The idea of birth and rebirth. I believe every day is a new beginning, an opportunity to live my life.

The failing light will return, and it will  come back to us tomorrow. We shall not forget to welcome it.  Hallelujah.

Maria is knee deep in a new wall hanging project in her studio, I don’t dare go in there but she is texting me the evolution of this dazzling project as she goes along. I love this one, it also has a sketch of our kitchen and it’s cabinets, I love seeing her amazing artistic mind work. You can follow it yourself on her website.

I think it’s a goddess,but I’m not sure, I know she was inspired to make this face from an image of a cat she saw. This is not yet finished or for sale.

Generally, the great thinkers of the world care little for superstition.

The late writer Christopher Hitchens said one of the things he most disliked in the world was stupidity, especially in its nastiest forms of racism and superstition. The philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote that fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear and superstition is, he said, the beginning of wisdom.

Like many people who work on blind faith in their creative skills to survive, I sometimes turn to superstition. My muse sits on my desk several feet from where I type, and when I begin any new work, or even start any new writing day, I put two fingers to my lips and then touch them to her forehead.

I ask her blessing  on my work, and I ask her to permit me to survive for yet another book, another year as a writer. I ask her to guide my photographs and also my fingers as they touch shutters and fly across the keyboard. In my more than three decades as a writer she has guided, comforted and inspired me, and I cannot help but think she has helped me to get this far.

This is a superstition something helpful to people whose fates are often in the hands of others. Every time I think I am finished, I turn to her, and she gives me a soft smile of encouragement, and I survive and move forward. Of course, I don’t really know if she is so powerful, and how can I ever know?

Believing in her has grounded and comforted for me, and this, of course, is why our frightened species has always been superstitious. I agree that fear is often the cause of cruelty, anger and bigotry. And I see that my fear is connection to my muse, as she is also the product of fear. Being a writer, or any creative person, is lonely, sometimes frightening work

When I look at my muse, I see grace and patience and affection. A shrink might suggest this is a projection of what a I need.

I think of another muse, Henry David Thoreau, who write about encountering a minister on the Sabbath who loudly reproached because he was out walking instead of praying.

“He really thought a God was on the watch to trip us those men who followed any secular work on this day, and did not see that it was the evil conscience of the workers that did it.”

This country, wrote Thoreau,”is full of this superstition…There are few things more disheartening and disgusting than when you are walking the streets of a strange village on the Sabbath, to hear a preacher shouting like a boatswain in a gale of wind, and thus harshly profaning the quiet atmosphere of the day.”

It is true that religion is a superstition in its own right, and that superstition is sometimes a cousin to fear and hatred. My muse is different. She is a philosopher, not a preacher.

I thought of my muse when I read this, and imagined her smile to deepen just a bit, her face soften. My muse never shouts like a boatswain, or scolds me for my errant ways. She holds the key to my imagination, and when asked politely, she gives me the key for a while.

I have gotten this far, and that is a superstition in itself. But I don’t dare to shed it.

It comes down, when all is said and done, to one of the oldest cliches in the world. Is the cup half full or half empty?

A simple saying, almost too small to be persuasive or compelling.

But yet, for me, so true, so important. It is a mantra for me.

This idea sets the template for the day. This morning, feeding the animals, watching the sun rise up so gracefully over the hills, back-lighting the frost that has formed in the forest on this very cold night, I thought about my cup, something I do every morning.

Do I mourn what is lost, or give thanks for what is present? Do I fear the future or  be grateful for the present? Do I yearn for what I do not have, or celebrate what I am fortunate to have? Simple questions, simple choices, really, but they set the tone for my day, for my life. They have given me a window through which to look at the world.

In an interview, the Rev. Billy Graham told me years ago – for some reason, he took a liking to me while I traveled with him as a reporter on one of his crusades – to never complain about taxes, the prices of gas, the cost of food in the market, or the loss of the good old days.

And never, he said, speak poorly of your life. It is a blasphemy.

The prices of gas, taxes, the cost of food will always rise, he said, the good old days are never as good as people like to think. If you make it a habit, the cup will always have something in it, if you submit to complaint and regret, it will always be empty. And your head will be full of anger and argument, the penalty for a life devoid of self-awareness or spirituality.

It was an important lesson from a man of great faith and empathy and ambition. We did not share the same religious beliefs, but he gave me much to think about and I heard it. Whenever I think of him, I am reminded to keep an open mind, you can learn something from everyone and every thing.

Every morning, I think about the cup, and this has helped me in many ways. Every day.

When someone tries to hand me their grief, their complaints, their anger, I put it in the cup, I don’t take it inside of me. And every day I ask myself if my cup is half full or half empty, and it has become a habit, an instinct, it is made its way into my sub-conscious, it shapes my writing and view of the world.

Every time I think about the cup, I am reminded of what I have, not what I do not have.

This morning, I thought briefly of the many things I once had but no longer have. More money, more fame, more material things, more of what some people call “security.” Today, I have many things I never had – love, partnership, freedom, peace of mind, some comfort with who I am, work that I love, animals that I love, books that I love to write, a blog I love to publish, friends I never had.

And perhaps most importantly, some comfort with who I am. There is not a day in my life where there is nothing to put in my cup, and that is a good thing to be reminded of every day, especially in a world brimming with victims and complaint.

I have no secrets, I have nothing to hide, I want for nothing that I need, I have a sense of security that does not come from money saved. I like who I am, that in itself will cause the cup to overflow.

It is a choice, really, this idea of what kind of a person I wish to be. And what kind of a person I don’t wish to be. That is the real power and symbolism of the cup.