Winter Solstice

Looking north this morning about 9 o'clock.

My father always called attention to the shortest day of the year.

The word 'solstice' was not in his vocabulary, nor the term 'equinox.'

Rather, he was a country man with an intense interest in weather and seasons.

He quoted the Old Farmers' Almanac, he kept thermometers fastened to outside windowsills on all sides of his house, comparing the temperature during a winter cold spell to the nth of a degree.

He marked the autmnal flights of the wild geese, announced the 'first day of winter'--observed the return of the springtime and commented on the 'longest day' in mid-summer.

His interest in the natural world, the changes of the seasons, the foibles of birds and beasts set the pattern of observation and delight early in my own life.

My son was born about daylight on December 22.  In Vermont that year we had been referring to the season as "winter" for many weeks.

The harvested corn ground, a neighbor's roof and the nearby hill framed by the back barn door.

I was standing on the mowing machine, using landscape setting and zoom.

I am Christian in my spiritual walk, so my observance of the solstice is not a ritual occasion.

Folklore and legends are fascinating and it is intriguing to see how the beliefs, customs, and celebrations of other times and older peoples have inter-twined with Christian traditions.

Another zoomed view of Payne-Janes' Hill with a swirl of birds against the clouds.

At this time of year I so often reflect that a reliable source of artificial light--electricity--is

astonishingly recent. Ages of earths' history have passed with only a feeble candle or torch or bonfire to create a small circle of illumination against the long dark of a winter's night.

Beyond that flickering yellow light anything might lurk; wild beast, friend, enemy, could not be reliably distinguished without entering the ring of light.

Little wonder that the lengthening of daylight--and all that implies of warmth, and green growing things--was welcomed with joy.

J. spent a winter or two in Alaska with his family as a young teen. He recalls the exhilaration of summer in "the land of the midnight sun" and the long stretch of winter when daylight was a feeble pall of grey barely distinguishable from night.

J. and I are New Englanders by birth and spent most of our lives there.

This marks our second winter in Kentucky following an interval of a dozen years in Wyoming.

We chuckle when folks here complain of cold weather!

It is still a novelty to walk outside with perhaps a down vest or a light jacket at mid-day.

I went  into the strip of woods which stretches along our western boundary.

It is not an appealing wood with towering trees, but a rather scraggly area of rotting stumps and vine-strangled oaks and flaring cedars.

Clumping along in my wellies, trying not to trip over fallen branches or lengths of trumpet vine, I was surprised to see ahead of me several shrubby trees with green leaves.

When I came up to the nearest one I realized I was seeing native holly.

Moss cloaks a rotting stump.

Bright fungi rise above a rustle of dry leaves.

The bare branches of this dead stump resemble antlers.

Evidence that one of the many wild turkeys met a violent end under the trees.

I would guess the predator might be one of the coyotes I have heard yapping and howling from the woods on nights when it is clear and the moon is waxing toward full.

Several of the twisted cedars show evidence of deer rubbing against the trunks and lower branches.

The deer forage for the ears of dried corn which the harvest machinery missed.

I have seen them bound into the woods as I walk up the back pasture, heard their warning coughs as they lift over the shabby fence.

The skull of an opossum, another victim of the coyotes, or perhaps of a fox.

Pebbles spotted my presence at the edge of the woods and stood watching with suspicion as I clambered back over the leaning wire fence.

I had gathered a handful of holly and white cedar with some idea of making a festive arrangement.

The branches are still on the old wooden trunk in the porch as inspiration fails me.

An old winter carol hums through my mind as I wander about in this mild Kentucky winter.

I noticed it in particular this December on a CD of Celtic Christmas music which I've had for several seasons.  I picked it out on the piano, then thought of an internet search.

Although sometimes titled "The Holly and the Ivy" it is more properly and traditionally known as

"Sans Day Carol", and is of Cornish origin.

I found several YouTube presentations of a John Rutter setting performed with cathedral choirs.

The one linked below is similar to the version on my CD and seems more authentic.

It is perhaps an example of an old carol blending the traditions of Christmas and Yule.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RF7fNVLrLHU&feature=related

Now the holly bears a berry as white as the milk,

                                             And Mary bore Jesus, all wrapped up in silk:

And Mary bore Jesus our Saviour for to be,

And the first tree in the greenwood, it was the holly.

Holly! Holly!

And the first tree in the greenwood, it was the holly!

 Now the holly bears a berry as green as the grass,

And Mary bore Jesus, who died on the cross:

And Mary bore Jesus our Saviour for to be,

And the first tree in the greenwood, it was the holly.

Holly! Holly!

       And the first tree in the greenwood, it was the holly!

       Now the holly bears a berry as black as the coal,

And Mary bore Jesus, who died for us all:

And Mary bore Jesus our Saviour for to be,

 And the first tree in the greenwood, it was the holly.

         Holly! Holly!

          And the first tree in the greenwood, it was the holly!

                                              Now the holly bears a berry, as blood is it red,

Then trust we our Saviour, who rose from the dead:

And Mary bore Jesus our Saviour for to be,

                                            And the first tree in the greenwood, it was the holly.
                                                                          Holly! Holly!
                                         And the first tree in the greenwood, it was the holly!