Category Archives: Advent

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 06 2015
2 Comments
Advent, Hanukkah

Enter the Light Bearers

Candlelight

Last night, with the Eve of St. Nicholas, we celebrated the first of the gift bearers, and tonight, Hanukkah begins. It is a moveable festival in the Jewish calendar, a festival of lights, this year the first of many nights where light is celebrated. And this is no surprise in this time of darkness, for we are fast on the approach to Midwinter: the longest night of the year. Light is what we seek.

Hanukkah commemorates an historical event in ancient Jerusalem in which a small flask of oil kept the lamp of the Temple burning for eight days and nights, much longer than it ever should have, long enough for a new supply of oil to be attained at a time when the prospect of attaining that oil looked bleak. This miracle of the oil is commemorated with each Hanukkah celebration through the lighting of the menorah, a candelabra of nine candles: one central candle and eight others, one for each of those eight nights.

Just as the oil of the temple lamp is central to Hanukkah, so is oil in the traditional foods of the holiday. Much of it is fried in hot oil. The most famous (and the ones that would get me to the table faster than anyone) are potato latkes and jelly doughnuts. The latkes are pancakes made from shredded potatoes, served with apple sauce and a dollop of sour cream. And any celebration that involves homemade doughnuts of any kind, be they jelly or plain or cinnamon, is no small cause for joy.

Our neighbor Old Aunt Sarah, who has been here in Lake Worth longer than anyone, doesn’t do much cooking these days, but some years, if the mood strikes her, she does make latkes for Hanukkah. Old Aunt Sarah’s latkes were the first I ever tasted. When she makes them, she makes them in large batches, and sends some over to Seth and me. We don’t see her often, but when we do, it is always a joy and a wonder, like the time she strolled over and peered over the garden fence and her gray eyes lit up when she saw the nasturtiums we were growing. “Nasturtiums!” she said, as she gazed upon those peppery blooms. She seemed transported. “I don’t think I’ve said that word since I was a child.”

It also happens to be, tonight, the Second Sunday of Advent, when we light two purple candles on our Advent wreath. Again, light increasing, for last week we had only one candle lit on our approach to Christmas, so tonight, that light is doubled. Old Aunt Sarah’s childlike wonder is central to Advent and to Hanukkah. We bring light, ever increasing light, to a dark time.  Old Aunt Sarah and we wish you that wonder. We, collectively––Aunt Sarah, you, me––we are the light bearers. It is up to each of us.

Image: “Candlelight,” a painting by Philippe Brouillard, 2015. [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons.

 

Nov 29 2015
1 Comment
Advent

Advent

Advent

It is the First Sunday of Advent, and here begins our time of preparation for Christmas. I write this tonight from Chicago, where we’ve been visiting family since before Thanksgiving. 41.8369° North in latitude, which is more than 15 degrees further north than our home in Lake Worth. Darkness falls much earlier here; the increase in darkness is much more apparent, the cold weather more extreme. We awoke on our first morning to a land covered in snow. Here, there is no doubt of midwinter’s approach.

Advent itself is a season of the Church. It is a time of preparation for Christmas much like Lent prepares us for Easter, and in earlier days it was a time of fasting, just as Lent is. It began back then on the 12th of November, the day after Martinmas, the day after our time of remembering the dead, which had begun with Halloween, had just come to a close. This aspect of Advent is now in the past. But the value of Advent is clear even if your Christmas celebration is not one based in religion. It matters not whether we are celebrating the birth of the Christ child or the triumph of light over darkness at the solstice. In either scenario, Advent has its place, for to speak of joy and peace at Christmas seems a bit disingenuous without first setting the stage for needing those gifts, and this is where Advent comes in: Advent humbles us, opens our hearts to this need. Advent provides us a time to make amends, to right wrongs, to repair relationships, to make our house fair as we are able. The days are dark. Advent prepares us for the coming light of the child, of the returning sun.

Over the centuries, many beautiful ways of expressing this have come about. There are many old old songs for this time of year that are not the songs you’ve been hearing in stores for weeks by now. These songs tend to be darker and more reflective. (The Benedictines of Mary have released one of the best collections of music for the season, called Advent at Ephesus. I highly recommend it.) Candles are naturally a big part of the traditions of Advent, too, for their symbolism is clear. Tradition would have us build a ring of four candles, three purple and one rose. On the First Sunday of Advent, which is tonight, we would light the first purple candle. Come the night of the Second Sunday, we light two purple candles. On the Third Sunday, we light those same two purple candles and the rose candle, and on the Fourth Sunday, not long before Christmas, all four candles are lit––as the nights grow increasing darker on the approach to the Midwinter Solstice, we respond with increasing light in our homes and in our hearts.

More secular approaches to Advent include a daily candle that is lit for an hour each day. At our home, we light ours each night at the table with dinner beginning on the First of December. When the candle is nearly done, Christmas has arrived. This tradition is related to the German tradition of the Advent calendar, which is probably the most familiar of Advent traditions. My first Advent calendar was given to me by my sister in 1973. The glitter and sparkle of the nighttime winter scene captured my imagination and I kept that calendar, along with every one I’ve had over the years. It is this same magic that has inspired much of what Convivio Bookworks is all about, and this is a large part of why we sell the things we sell, because I love sharing that magic with you, too.

We want Christmas to be magical for our kids and for ourselves, and Advent is, to me, key to that magic. It’s all about taking things slowly, all about setting the pace, setting the stage. We open our hearts and minds to possibility; we become light bearers in a time of increasing darkness.

 

Image: close up view of one of the many traditional German Advent calendars we sell at our website. This one was originally printed in 1955. Seth and I brought it to my aunt’s house in Illinois to help her and my cousins prepare for Christmas once we head back home.

 

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