Winter Solstice

Day 70: A good Solstice to all! And it's a rather strange one here, what with temperatures in the mid-50s. Don't get me wrong. I'm not objecting! I've been able to get out for a couple of short walks over the last week, the longest being a little over three miles yesterday, but now we have rain coming in again. That said, rain and 50 degrees is better than snow and 20 degrees, no matter how much I'd enjoy a white Christmas. As most of you know, the winter Solstice is one of the most important days in my year. I do not have any particular way to celebrate it, other than to breathe a sigh of relief that soon, the days will be visibly longer. My body recognizes the fact about a week earlier than my mind does, responding with a rise in my overall energy level. By some time in the first week of January, I'll be saying, "Hey, it's not dark yet" at dinnertime, even though sunset has advanced only by a minute or two, and I'll be perusing seed catalogs with fervor, the urge to plant and grow strong within my nature. Spring is just around the corner, people, so join me today in celebrating the return of Light to the world!

Solstice

Day 69: We're turning the corner. The nights may be colder for a month or so, but daylight is stretching its fingers into the darkness of morning and evening. As a morning person, I am always up well before the sun, having my first cup of coffee sometimes three hours before it's time to throw back the drapes. In summer, I often rise even earlier per the clock, to enjoy the quiet time before the sun climbs above the limb of the world. However, the tail of the day arrives far too soon in winter, and I find myself  checking to see if it's time for bed at 3:30 PM when old Sol has sunk behind the tall Douglas-firs to the west of me and the sky has begun to dim. Although I will not consciously be aware of each additional second in the days following Solstice until a week has passed, I know that my mood will begin to lift with each one. Celebrate the Solstice with me: Dance the Holly! Dance the Mistletoe! The Light is now returning, and dark nights swiftly go!

Solstice Greetings

Day 69: Solstice greetings, my friends! Dance the Holly! Dance the Mistletoe! The Light is now returning, and dark nights swiftly go! Here, there is snow on the ground and a nip in the air which is forecast to become a much firmer bite over the next two nights, but with the passing of this date, there is hope in the fact that darkness is losing its grip (at least in the northern hemisphere). How long will it be before you begin to notice a change in the length of day? It usually takes me about a week, maybe ten days before I say, "Hm...it's lighter later. Nice!" And believe me, to a Pacific Northwesterner, those few seconds or minutes are significant. You wouldn't think such a small change was noticeable, but we humans are governed by a biological clock which is more sensitive than we might imagine. The body becomes aware of lengthening daylight even before the mind recognizes it, and those of us who are affected by SAD (and what true Pacific Northwesterner is not?), we begin to feel more cheerful, more energetic. For certain, we understand that winter has only barely started, and that colder days are ahead of us, but those few seconds of extra light help us bear up under its assault. Soon, we'll find ourselves receiving another assist to our recovery from the "gloomies." The first seed catalogs will be coming in the mail, and that's a sure sign that spring is just around the corner!

Solstice Greetings!

Day 69: Dance the Holly! Dance the Mistletoe! The Light is now returning, and dark nights swiftly go!

How long will it be before you first remark, "Hmmm...the days must be getting longer?" Even though the length of day will only gain five minutes by January 1, something about the quality of the light registers in the primitive portion of my brain by that date. Like most Pacific Northwesterners, I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder to some degree (some years are rougher than others), and even that slight change is enough to lift my spirits. Although today Winter is preparing to throw its white mantle around our shoulders, the knowledge that we are beginning our climb out of the pit of seasonal gloom can focus our eyes towards Spring. For many of us, this manifests as a renewed interest in seed catalogs with their bright, cheery pictures of rosy-red tomatoes, bouquets of lettuce, nosegays of broccoli and cauliflower. Life, green life, is waiting to leap up from the earth from tiny seeds. My pussywillows know it. Their buds are beginning to swell in joyous celebration of the Light. Join them and me for a happy Solstice, dear readers!

Solstice Greetings 2020

Day 69: Dance the holly! / Dance the mistletoe! / The Light is now returning / And dark nights swiftly go! Solstice greetings to you, dear readers, with hope that this dark period in our history will be dispelled as surely as the gloom of winter gives way to longer and brighter days. It is the way of Nature to go in cycles: seasons, generations, epochs. The only true constant is that of change. Nothing endures forever and, as one sage put it, what doesn't kill us makes us stronger. Sometimes, especially here in the Pacific Northwest, it seems as if there are only two seasons, that of winter which lasts ten months of the year, shouldering on either end as two-week periods which slope gradually into that of a brief month of summer. Seasonal Affective Disorder aside, we northern-latitude humans are tried and tested survivors. As the days lengthen and Light, however dim, begins to encroach on the edges of darkness, bid your spirits to rise and join the celebratory dance.

Mistletoe And Holly

Day 69: Happy Solstice! The mistletoe and holly are laid, the candles are lit, and...wait, what's that stuff on my garage roof? Snow! If you had gathered up every bit in my yard, you might have been able to fill a teacup, but snow on Solstice is even better than a white Christmas. Although I'm not as fond of the stuff as I was when I was a child, I still love snow, with the proviso that it does not linger on the ground when I have places to go and people to see, and allows me to enjoy it from the snug warmth of my home. Snow is fine if I can go to it; if it comes to me, it should have the politeness to give fair warning and refrain from calling at an inconvenient time or overstaying its welcome. A dab on the Solstice is genteel; a foot, unless it comes when I have nothing better to do than admire it, can only be considered a vulgarity not to be borne.

Glad Solstice

Day 69: A glad Solstice to you all, dear readers! I very nearly didn't have holly for this festive occasion. My customary bush had been picked bare by earlier visitors, and my second choice only had one twig with berries, the leaves badly bug-eaten. Defeated at both locations, I began searching. You wouldn't think it would be that hard. After all, holly is considered an invasive here, and I often find bushes growing miles from trailheads, planted there by birds. However, the rain was coming down in buckets and I was reluctant to walk even the half mile to a third known option. Fortunately, I found a small bush along a quiet roadside where I pulled off, got out and jumped the ditch, clippers in hand. Five minutes later, I was back in the dry car with my Solstice Holly in hand.

The mistletoe is another story. I haven't seen it in stores for years, although a friend reports that some nurseries carry it (berries removed), so more than thirty years ago, I "grew" my own from Fimo sculpting clay. Like its natural counterpart, it's shed a few berries over time, but at least I don't have to worry about my kitties being poisoned if they were to eat them.

The Light returns to the Pacific Northwest with a dash of snow and crisp temperatures. Winter is only just begun, but the seeds of Spring are germinating under the lengthening days. On this day of renewal, I wish you all the best for the coming seasons.

How I Spent My Solstice Vacation

Day 70: While I was deciding how I wanted to celebrate Solstice this year, I received an invitation from the Nisqually Land Trust to join a work-party on that day. What better way to spend the occasion than in service to the Earth? My "annual leave" from Park duties parallels Kevin's since I ride up with him, so I had the day free. The project was touted as an "ivy-pull." English ivy is a major problem on many of our properties, but an earlier work party had cut it from the trees at this location (note the dead vines on the big cottonwood on the left), and our task involved removal of new shoots. Sounds fairly easy, right? It might have been, but for a heavy understory of five-foot high Snowberry concealing our quarry. You could never have guessed that six of us were hard at work within a 200-foot diameter circle. In fact, it was so dense that I couldn't see my work-mates even when they were only twenty feet away. The two hidden "Waldos" in this image were working near the river where I had the clearest vantage point to document volunteer attendance for the event.

Solstice Greetings

Day 69: A Happy Solstice to you, my readers! Although holly poses no problem to find, mistletoe is quite another story. I have yet to observe it growing in the wild, and thus must make do with a sprig I created from plastic modelling clay. That said, three species do occur in the Pacific Northwest. Phoradendron flavenscens (Oak Mistletoe) grows primarily in the Willamette Valley (Oregon). Western Dwarf Mistletoe (Arceuthobium campylopodium) occurs on a variety of conifers, and Douglas' Dwarf Mistletoe is parasitic on Douglas fir (but only infrequently on the west side of the Cascades). It's possible that I have seen it without realizing it; it causes abnormal and irregular growth in its host, and may appear at a distance to look like massed fir needles and twigs. Arceuthobium campylopodium is known to occur in Mount Rainier National Park, specifically in the vicinity of White River. Ah! A project! Let me make this Solstice resolution: to find and photograph Dwarf Mistletoe during the coming year.

Solstice Greetings To All!

Day 69: Since the Solstice will occur at an hour when any right-minded person should be entertaining visions of sugarplums, I will take this opportunity to wish my friends and readers the joys of the day. In any event, the occasion has been ushered in with a fall of snow: winter has arrived a few hours early to the party, and by all estimates, will probably overstay its welcome. For now, however, I am delighted by the storybook scene outside my window, as visually traditional of the season as Currier and Ives. Let it snow! Here in my snug domain, I will dance the holly and the mistletoe. The Light is returning! Dark nights swiftly go!

Dance The Holly! Dance The Mistletoe!

Day 69: The Solstice finds the Pacific Northwest under a thick layer of dripping cloud, grey in the manner so typical of the area, yet those of us who are governed more by Nature than by the arbitrary structures of clock and calendar feel this turning in our bones. The Light is returning, a lengthening of daylight imperceptible at first, noticeable by those attuned to the change in a week or ten days, obvious to all by mid-January.

It is unsurprising that many mid-winter festivals incorporate illuminations into their observances, whether by candle, sparkling lights or a shining star atop the Christmas tree. For some, light is a metaphor (Christ as "the Light of the world"); for others, it is a physical thing (the flame in the darkness or the sun rising over a specific landmark). It is a theme which joins the hands of one faith with another and another, until all are standing in a great circle, linked by that one commonality. We are brought to unity by Light.

In peace and in harmony, turn your hearts to the Light.
Let it shine on you and within you; be its messenger.
Carry the Light to one and all, and live its beauty as your motto.
Celebrate the Solstice and the returning of the Light.

Solstice Greetings

Day 80: As a creature of the seasonal calendar, I celebrate festivals of a different sort: the Solstices and Equinoxes, the appearance of Pussywillows, the First Day of Skunk Cabbage and of course September Morn. Many do not have a set date, a fact which lends them an element of surprise lacking in traditional observances. Wild Ginger comes when it will, on a schedule all its own, and the Grosbeaks arrive on a timetable so complex that the human mind cannot hope to understand it. There are, however, those milestones in the year which occur at a specific second, if on a rotation of days, and none is more significant than Winter Solstice. Winter Solstice brings renewal in character of Light. Imperceptible at first, within ten days or two weeks, the lengthening of daylight is noticeable to anyone attuned to the progression of the seasons. By mid-January, it is apparent to all but the dullest eye.

For many people, Solstice may be associated with a physical element, whether man-made (Stonehenge, for example) or natural. From my vantage point, the Solstice Moon rises behind Mount Rainier, a perfectly magical conjuncture should the weather permit it to be seen.

Celebrate with me the Returning of the Light!
Dance the holly,
Dance the mistletoe!
The Light is now returning
And dark nights quickly go.