Shifting Shadows

Shifting Shadows

Winter Solstice’s Longest Night has passed and for those of us in the northern hemisphere winter officially begins today! Each day forward will bring a few more minutes of daylight as this old tilted Earth once more  miraculously makes another trip around the sun. In one way, winter launches a new year. 

For centuries people everywhere have looked toward the sky.  Fisherfolk, farmers, poets and mystics have paused to acknowledge that the season is changing.

To mark the occasion, last night I gathered amid candle light for a Longest Night Blue Christmas worship with friends at Harmony United. It was a lovely time to be still, to watch, to listen, to be. To remember, to shed a tear or two and give thanks.

The worship offered space to reflect on the words of Sandy Tomkos:

“The winter solstice is the time of ending and beginning, a powerful time - a time to contemplate your immortality. A time to forgive, to be forgiven, and to make a fresh start. A time to awaken”

I am grateful for these changing seasons - a time to make a fresh start. I seem to need the phantom reminder of the winter solstice to be filled with wonder at the world, to embrace both darkness and light and the gifts each bring.

Somehow we have been taught to fear the dark. Yet the dark embraces everything. It invites wild imagination and bold dreams.  

Look to the beautiful poinsettia we enjoy this time of year - they need the dark to bloom. 

I’ve read that poinsettias are short-day plants. For a mid-December bloom date, you have to start preparing the plant around September 21st (Autumnal Equinox). For about 10 weeks, the plant needs 13 hours of uninterrupted darkness and 11 hours of bright light each day. You can either move your plant into a dark room, closet or cover it in a large opaque box. Apparently any exposure to stray light of any kind could delay the flowering process. Even if light gets in through cracks or if you open and use the closet, it will affect the bud set.

Late November, as Advent begins in church world, the plant is ready to come out! With at least six hours of direct light daily, behold! Watch the crimson red appear! (Please know that anything I write about plant care comes from Google as it is risky business being a plant in our home.)

Like the budding of the poinsettia, this change of season is a slow process.

On this winter solstice, if you are outside at noon and look at your shadow, it will be the longest shadow you cast the entire year. Each day from now until June, the shadow will shorten. I was fortunate today for at noon, here on Chickadee Lane, the sun was shining making it possible to mark the day as you see in the picture above.  

I thought of that and how often I do not notice the change taking place around me. Sometimes the good news is slow to reveal itself. Be it the response to a prayer for myself or a loved one, signing a petition or writing a government official calling for justice and equality, the response is not easily visible. It takes attention to the slow, slow positive outcomes to not become discouraged and be tempted to bubble wrap ourselves from reality. 

Still, when I do pause to notice, I do see it happening. 

As we embrace the excitement, joy and possible sadness of this Christmas weekend perhaps by noticing the light return and shadows shift we may be blessed with a sense of how simple joy is and how much happiness you can share. 

May it be so.

Merry Christmas to all. May the hope, peace, joy and love of this Holy season be with you and yours.