{"id":6630,"date":"2019-12-13T00:14:18","date_gmt":"2019-12-13T05:14:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.conviviobookworks.com\/blog\/?p=6630"},"modified":"2019-12-13T00:14:18","modified_gmt":"2019-12-13T05:14:18","slug":"the-night-is-vast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.conviviobookworks.com\/blog\/the-night-is-vast\/","title":{"rendered":"The Night is Vast"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The night walks with heavy steps around farm and cottage.<\/em>
\nAround the earth, forsaken by the sun, shadows are lowering.<\/em>
\nThen into our dark house she treads with lighted candles,<\/em>
\nSankta Lucia, Sankta Lucia.<\/em><\/p>\n

The night is vast and mute. Now here reverberate<\/em>
\nin all silent rooms a rustle as of wings.<\/em>
\nSee, on our threshold stands\u2013\u2013whiteclad, lights in her hair\u2013\u2013<\/em>
\nSankta Lucia, Sankta Lucia.<\/em><\/p>\n

“The darkness will soon take flight from the valleys of earth.”<\/em>
\nThus she a wonderful word to us speaks.<\/em>
\nThe day shall again, reborn, rise from a rosy sky,<\/em>
\nSankta Lucia, Sankta Lucia.<\/em><\/p>\n

It is St. Lucy’s Day: the Feast of Santa Lucia, a celebration that gets jumbled up between things Italian and Swedish for Lucia is sacred to both Italy and Sweden. Even the song that is sung<\/a> throughout Sweden this night is Italian in origin, an old Neapolitan melody, transformed and rewritten for a place where, at this darkest time of the year, the night is vast.<\/p>\n

There are processions tonight throughout Sweden celebrating Sankta Lucia: in churches, in schools, in city streets, on national television. Each will feature a Lucia, donning a wreath of glowing candles upon her head,\u00a0with scores of her attendants: boys and girls dressed in white, each bearing a candle, and then the Star Boys, each carrying stars on poles and donning tall white conical caps. It is one of the most beautiful sights of these ever-darkening nights on the approach to the solstice.<\/p>\n

Our local Sankta Lucia festival was in November: quite early, but that’s when the church hall was available, so that’s when the SWEA ladies\u2013\u2013the Swedish Womens Education Association\u2013\u2013held their celebration. We were there with a pop up shop of advent calendars and candles and artisan goods from Sweden. All day long, the women spoke to me in sentences that began in English and evolved to Swedish before they ended. I did not understand much. But I did understand Tack<\/em> (Thank you) and gl\u00f6gg<\/em> and lussekatter<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In Italy, lucky children awoke this morning to find tiny presents tied to their shoelaces. That’s if they left hay and carrots in their shoes before they went to bed, for Santa Lucia’s donkey. Santa Lucia follows St. Nicholas as the next of the Midwinter gift bearers. Lucia calls down the light at this dark time of year perhaps more strongly than any other saint or gift bearer. Her very name in Italian, Lucia, is rooted in the word luce<\/em>, which translates to light. She is a patron saint of the blind and the visually challenged, and also of writers like me, and scholars, teachers, and librarians.<\/p>\n

Seth\u2019s great aunt was named Lucy. Her father, an immigrant to Maine from Italy, lost his sight in an accident on the railway where he worked. This was in the early 1900s. Aunt Lucy was born soon after the accident, so naturally, her parents named her for her father’s new protector. \u201cBut I was no saint,\u201d she would confide to us.<\/p>\n

We will think of Aunt Lucy and we will have our coffee and lussekatter and we will have the Santa Lucia song in our heads and on our lips all day and all night, in Swedish and in Italian. All of these things bearing light\u2013\u2013luce<\/em>\u2013\u2013to the Midwinter darkness.<\/p>\n

COME SEE US!<\/strong>
\n\u201cYule\u201d love what we have at each of these markets! They’re the last of our local pop up shops before the holidays.<\/p>\n

Undiscovered: An\u00a0Inclusive Arts Festival<\/a>
\nSaturday December 14\u00a0from 10 AM to 4 PM (but we have to pack up by 3!)
\nat Palm Beach Habilitation Center
\n4522 South Congress Avenue in Lake Worth
\nWe\u2019re so excited to take part in this inaugural arts fair at the Hab Center, which does such wonderful work helping folks with disabilities become more independent through training and employment. There are art projects that EVERYONE can participate in, and there\u2019s a pop up market;\u00a0we\u2019ll be there with lots of great artisan goods from our catalog.<\/p>\n

Holiday Night Market<\/a>
\nSaturday December 14\u00a0from 4 to 8 PM
\nat Social House
\n512 Lucerne Avenue in Downtown Lake Worth
\nIt\u2019s always a special night at Social House. We\u2019ll be showing our Christmas artisan goods and Shaker teas (and my mom\u2019s famous candy wreaths). One of our favorite markets at one of our favorite places!<\/p>\n

Midwinter Makers Marketplace<\/a>
\nSunday December 15\u00a0from 10 AM to 4 PM
\nat Florida Atlantic University
\n777 Glades Road in Boca Raton
\nIt\u2019s full swing yuletide and we\u2019ll be showing our\u00a0handmade artisan Christmas ornaments and decorations from Germany, Sweden, and\u00a0Mexico and our full line of Shaker herbs & teas and more (like my mom\u2019s famous candy wreaths). Plus there\u2019s live music almost all day: Ella Herrera from 10 to 1 and Rio Peterson from 1 to 4.\u00a0Look for the blue & white MAKERS MARKETPLACE signs on FAU campus roads.<\/p>\n

Revelry Sip & Shop<\/a>
\nSunday December 15\u00a0from 1\u00a0to 6\u00a0PM
\nat Revelry Lake Worth
\n17 South J Street in Downtown Lake Worth
\nFind us in the courtyard with our handmade Christmas artisan goods and Shaker herbal teas and more. They\u2019re serving bottomless mimosas!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The night walks with heavy steps around farm and cottage. Around the earth, forsaken by the sun, shadows are lowering. Then into our dark house she treads with lighted candles, Sankta Lucia, Sankta Lucia. The night is vast and mute. Now here reverberate in all silent rooms a rustle as of wings. See, on our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11,14,15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.conviviobookworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6630"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.conviviobookworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.conviviobookworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.conviviobookworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.conviviobookworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6630"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.conviviobookworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6634,"href":"http:\/\/www.conviviobookworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6630\/revisions\/6634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.conviviobookworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.conviviobookworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.conviviobookworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}