Monthly Archives: December 2015

Dec 25 2015
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Christmas, Yule

The Close & Holy Darkness

Quiet

And once again, it is Christmas. It is the Quiet Time of Christmas as I write this, the small hours past midnight on Christmas Eve, after the last minute rush of the day, after the realization that all will not be done (and the peace that comes along with accepting that), after the unplanned but necessary changing of a kitchen faucet for an old family friend, after the Christmas Eve dinner with family. It was the traditional Italian dinner for this night: seven fishes. Well, six fishes actually… but the bacala made an appearance in two separate dishes, so I think that counts for seven. So many fishes, but this is the tradition, and we do what our parents and grandparents did for this night, for it is what their parents and grandparents did, and so it goes, down the line. Such is the stuff of memory and tradition.

This quiet time is certainly one of the best things about Christmas in my book. The darkness is close and holy, just as Dylan Thomas described it. The lights from the Christmas tree illuminate the room and the lights from the rooftop, this year all blue and green, cast a glow into the windows. I think of all the stories of Christmas and all the magic that happens in them on this enchanted night: the gift bearers, the ghosts of Christmases past, present, and yet to come, angels like Clarence and Dudley from old black and white films, and of course the child born in a barn and laid in straw, kept warm by the breath of an ox and an ass.

Christmas is just beginning. Tomorrow, we awake to Christmas Day, more joyful celebration, to be followed then by the Twelve Days of Christmas, a traditional period of time that stands outside ordinary time, six days in the old year, six in the new. I’ll write about each day for you as it comes, beginning with St. Stephen’s Day on the 26th. The chapters come daily, my gift this yuletide to you. I hope you’ll enjoy them and share them with others. Perhaps the oddest thing about Christmas to me is that corporate America jumps on the Christmas bandwagon sometimes as early as summertime, plying their seasonal wares to us. Christmas music in the stores sometimes in October, products on the shelves come August. They whip us into a Christmas frenzy for months, and yet once Christmas actually begins, they pull the plug on it and we, in turn, are sick of it all. It’s over saturation. This is the real war on Christmas, and a great disrespect to it.

As for the folks in this house, we find the slow approach best, and we find that celebrating this season to its fullest for its full duration of twelve days is best. It keeps us at peace with the season, helps us keep it and keep it well, keeps us passionately in love with it as the years go by. And this we wish to you, as well. Merry Christmas.

Image: The view from where I am sitting this late Christmas Eve hour.

 

Dec 21 2015
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Advent, Christmas, Solstice, Yule

Receiving Radiance

solstice

Since the midsummer solstice in June, we have been gradually losing daylight here in the planet’s Northern Hemisphere. Just a bit each day. By the autumnal equinox in September, day and night were equal. And now, here at the midwinter solstice, we reach the end of that cycle: It is the longest night of the year. Tomorrow, the pendulum begins its shift to the opposite and light will once again begin to increase. It is the clockwork of our planet, the constant rearrange, each day slightly different from the one before it and the one that follows.

For those of us who keep the traditional ways, the revels of midwinter are just now getting underway. We’ve been preparing all these weeks––last night, the Fourth Sunday of Advent, we lit the fourth candle in the advent wreath, completing the circle: four purple candles and one rose. The daily advent candle is burning down, too: just four nights from now, the candle will be gone. Our time of preparation is coming to a close and the real festivity is about to begin with Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and the Twelve Days of Christmas that follow: six of which are in the old year, six in the new––twelve days that stand outside of ordinary time.

But that is still ahead of us. For tonight, we celebrate the planet’s reaching its wintertime zenith in its constant shift, like an old man in his rocking chair on the porch. On this longest night of the year, Seth and I will head out into that midwinter darkness, and in the copper fire bowl in the back yard we will light a fire made from the wood of last year’s Christmas tree, which has been resting quietly in a corner of the yard all year long. It is our own little tradition but one that we feel honors best the spirit of the tree that brought us so much joy last yuletide. This year, the actual moment of solstice––of sun standing still (from the Latin sol stetit, “sun stands still”) is 11:49 PM here in Lake Worth, which is Eastern Daylight Time. You can count on us being out there at our fire at that moment (and for a good while before and after, as well), probably with a bottle of St. Bernardus Christmas Ale.

Will you join us in spirit? We’ve been talking about our solstice tradition for years now, so maybe there are some among you who also save last year’s tree for this night. Or maybe this is your year to begin doing so. Or maybe the best you can do is to light a candle with us tonight at 11:49. Wherever you are and however you join in, we are here as light bearers ourselves, receiving radiance from others: from sun, from flame, from the kindness we send out into the world reflected upon us. We bid you peace. Welcome yule.

Here’s a yuletide gift for you, from us: it is Björk’s song Solstice. You will most likely have to endure a brief advertisement before the video, but once that part is done, I’d suggest viewing it full screen and turning up the volume a bit. It is a simple and beautiful song, just Björk’s odd and powerful voice accompanied by the gravity harp, a musical instrument created especially for the songs on her 2011 record Biophilia. This song and its accompanying video remind me of the great immensity of things, of things much larger than my self and my concerns. Sometimes seeing the bigger picture is very comforting.

 

Dec 12 2015
8 Comments
Santa Lucia, The Gift Bearers

You are a Light Bearer

NannetteDapper1967

Come December 13 we are but eight days from the midwinter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere and now enters another of the light bearers, and a gift bearer, as well. It is Santa Lucia, St. Lucy, patron saint of eyesight. Lucia, a name derived from the Latin lux and lucis: light. The nights grow increasingly darker on our solstice approach. Santa Lucia breaks the night darkness with light that shines from her head, at least in the Swedish tradition.

The historical Lucia was from Sicily. She is said to have intervened in a famine in Sicily in the 16th century when a flotilla of grain mysteriously arrived in port on her feast day. Rather than take the time to mill the wheat into flour, the hungry people fed themselves on boiled wheat grains, and to this day, whole grain wheat finds its way into traditional Italian foods for Santa Lucia’s Day. But Lucia’s following is equally strong in Sweden, oddly enough. Some say that she intervened in a famine there, too, though I am not sure about that. What is obvious, though, is that life along the Arctic Circle on the approach to midwinter is dark indeed, and here is a saint who’s very name calls down light.

Here is the best song you can listen to today. It is an old Neapolitan melody about Santa Lucia, but it is in Swedish. I love this melding of cultures and celebration. In Italian, Lucia is pronounced with a “ch” (loo-chee-a) while in Swedish, the C is soft (loo-see-a). The song you’re listening to, if you’re listening to it (and I hope you are) is from a procession in Sweden of young girls dressed in white and young boys, called star boys, also dressed in white, carrying stars on tall poles. Somewhere amongst them is the Lucia, wearing a wreath of lit candles upon her head. Such a beautiful song and such a beautiful sight. In this time of still increasing darkness, we welcome the light, we welcome the beauty, we welcome the harmony and know in our hearts that this is right and this is good.

Image: “Miss Lucia,” a photograph from the National Archive of the Netherlands. Miss Lucia is Nannette van Viet-Dapper, photographed on December 9, 1967. Perhaps some Swedish traditions have emerged to the south, as well. [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons.

 

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