in the realm of the fictionman

Winter is Coming

I post so infrequently now, I know. It isn't for lack of content. Partly it's lack of time. Partly lack of energy. Sometimes I find myself, shortly before bed, having a little bit of time to myself. All too often by that point, thought, I don't want to have to engage brain any more. So mindless Spider Solitaire for ten minutes or so is easier. There are a lot of things I haven't been getting done, not just blogging.

Earlier today we figured out how we want to celebrate the Solstice this year. The actual solstice is at 6:22pm on the 21st (Thursday). That's the point that the Earth's axis actually points the furthest from the sun.

As the sun appears lower in the sky, the sunlight passes through more atmosphere before reaching the ground, making it colder and creating winter. It also means that each night approaching the Solstice the sun sets a little earlier. Each night gets a little longer (with also each morning coming earlier).

In ancient times this scared primitive people big time. (If it keeps up like this, pretty soon there just won't be ANY day time and we'll all just die!). So ancient people held celebration festivals the night of the solstice, encouraging the sun to come back. Sure enough, days started getting longer. Whew. Of course, we understand things a little better now.

But lengthening days still mean summer will happen again one day. It'll get warmer, and we can plant things and play outside. That's still worth celebrating, right?

So, that brings us around to what does it all mean to us. Here's my half of it:

Thursday the 21st will be the shortest day of the year. That night the longest night of the year. Also kindof the end of one year and the start of the next. Sure, there's the whole January thing, but that's just an arbitrary date with no real meaning.

Our plan is to stay up all night through that longest night. Lots of drumming and happy celebration. We'll share some thoughts about the past year, make some goals for the new one. We'll watch that first sunrise of a new beginning, a new season, a new year. And then we'll feast. A breakfast feast. A new dawn.

Our Solstice is also about sharing with others. Maybe Amy and I will both share some unique personal tidbit on respective blogs. We're both going to go through our wardrobes and find the things we just aren't going to wear any more. Friday those items get donated. We'll help Jareth pick a toy he's done with. We'll donate that toy. He can share, and let someone else play with it. (We're definitely going to be involved in helping him make that decision! Leave it to our kid to try to want to share his favorite toy...)

Heck, staying up all night is just another 4-5 hours longer than normal, right? :-) We'll see if we make it, but the intent is there. With any luck, I can take the day off on Friday. Otherwise I'll at least be late (not to mention close to worthless at that point).

So that's the thinking for right now. I'll have to let Amy know I just posted this. Maybe she'll quickly put up her thoughts, since they won't be 100% the same as mine. And they shouldn't be, either.

Posted by fictionman at December 17, 2006 10:23 PM | TrackBack (0)