Longest Night...

Winter Solstice has always (in my grown up years) meant Peace. It is the ending of one cycle and the beginning of another. It is the beginning of the sun heading North and the days getting longer and longer. It is also the season that gets colder and colder. For some reason, this has held a special place for me. The nights are usually crisp and clear, and the stars are twinkling very loudly, Singing to me to come out and look up! As I stand out there in the blue darkness looking at the universe, my breath leaves my body in a warm cloud, creating a white trail over my head.

I have every single Winter Solstice album that Windham Hill has produced, and this is the time that I play every one of them, a marathon of peaceful music. Navy Blue and White are the colors of this season, the Navy blue of the sky and the white of the stars, the Navy blue of the shadows of the trees cast on the white snow, the Navy blue of my skin as I stand out there in the COLD, and the white of the frozen flesh on my nose.


Winter Solstice

Tonite marks the longest night of the year. Tonite marks the longest night in 10,000 years! How do they know that? Was someone around to time it 10,000 years ago? Was there time back then?

On Adak, there is a legend that on this night the single men all run outside NUDE at midnight and jump up and down and yell HOODY HOO! HOODY HOO!!! To scare away the darkness and bring the sun back. It must work, because the Sun always does come back. The Druids would paint their bodies blue and wear mud hats, and dance in the nude. Maybe it is because the blue paint covers up the Navy Blue of their skin.

Right now, the air is cold and crisp, and I was out on my deck cleaning all the rabbit poop and litter off of it. I had forgotten I had the bag of litter box leavings in a sack on the deck, and Sadie tore it up and ate bunny poop. So now it will freeze tonight and while I am sitting inside listening to Winter Solstice albums, the Auroras will show there talents by dancing with their white lights across the Navy blue sky and my sister will call me to go look. I will forget that I had just shot water all over the deck, and it is now a solid sheet of ice, and I will run out to look, and slip and fall, and lay there until my skin turns Navy Blue, and the deck turns white with ice.

God I LOVE it!!