It is a dark time, yes, but not, I think, that moment on Pelennor fields just before the wind changes.

That great battle never came to pass. The full forces of West and East were never unleashed to fight the ultimate war; a sudden and unanticipated turn of events saved us all from that doom.

But now we find that the leadership of the Council of the West has fallen and has inflicted all kinds of mischief at home, petty on the scale of the final destruction which seemed inevitable, but heartbreaking nonetheless.

Next Chapter: The Scouring

And now it's being brought to you live!: Solstice webcast from Newgrange. Unfortunately, I can't get it to work on my system (yet, she mutters darkly) -- can any of you-all get it to stream, yet?

If it does, this is the perfect intersection of old and new. Time to re-read Hogfather.

It's been an odd year here in Sydney, Australia.

After a lengthy visit from El Nino (who really overstayed his welcome), we're having an unexpected visit from his sister La Nina. This has led to rather schizophrenic weather.

We've had stinking hot days punctuated by short violent thunderstorms - rain so heavy that you couldn't see more than two blocks away, but clear skies an hour later.

We've seen temperatures soaring and plunging in a matter of days - one night it's too hot to have more than a single sheet on the bed, and a few nights later it's cold enough for blankets and a quilt.

We've had dam levels dwindle over a number of years to only 33% full, and then suddenly shoot up to over 60% full in a matter of months.

In more ways than one this has definitely been a year of climate change. I can honestly say I have absolutely no idea what to expect next year.

Niall @1:
I have fairly severe Seasonal Affective Disorder, and I live in Northern Europe. Every winter is Pelennor and Helm's Deep rolled up together, no matter what the larger political situation.

This winter has been a little better, thanks to my recent move slightly south, but I still crumpled into tears in the corner after my company's Christmas drinks last night. (Poor sleep for weeks, kid barfing all night, work stress, too much Dutch, but mostly just winter eating away at me.)

We're going to Scotland for Christmas week, staying with my in-laws. I'm hoping to get more sleep.

I had a sudden image of a Pride and Prejudice where Lizzie disguises herself as a man, goes in search of Lydia and Wickham, only end up in a metal bikini chained to Jabba the Hut. And Darcy comes to save her.

It will be interesting to see who makes it through the complete Jane Austen this winter and spring on Masterpiece Theater. Friends who are gushing over it, that is.

I didn't get to see the Sun shine through the roof-box into the passage grave at Newgrange this morning, but it did rise directly ahead of me, rosy and cheerful, as I drove from Clara into Tullamore.

The Sun will continue to rise later each morning until about the 30th, but I won't be driving to work to see it as I'm off for Christmas!

The seasons' axle is the dark of night.
The carousel slows, stops, for just a day.
The wheel turns slowly as we rise to light.

The heavens turn in cycles in our sight;
it took us centuries to see the way
the seasons' axle is the dark of night.

The year repeats the path of geese in flight;
letters written on the blue in gray.
The wheel turns slowly as we rise to light.

Great Year turns slowly, quern of might,
as Terra's spin tumbles under Sun's sway.
The seasons' axle is the dark of night.

We tremble now to know our plight;
to see the depths of world's decay.
The wheel turns slowly as we rise to light.

Yet wheels go round, return is right.
As in large so small obey.
The seasons' axle is the dark of night.
The wheel turns slowly as we rise to light.

The Year is dead, long live the New Year.

East at #5

I had a sudden image of a Pride and Prejudice where Lizzie disguises herself as a man, goes in search of Lydia and Wickham, only end up in a metal bikini chained to Jabba the Hut. And Darcy comes to save her.

I would totally read that book.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that all living things create an energy field which surrounds and penetrates them, and binds the galaxy together.

If we had a slightly less eccentric orbit and less axial tilt, nature's story arc would be flat...

I'm still in school, so this isn't the end of a year but the middle. It's dark and cold and 'wintry mix' keeps showing up, but it's the end of a semester. Friends are going home, or to different homes, so we eat out a lot to see each other one last time before the month off. One is going to journalism school-- we need her out there. I keep setting my alarm earlier and earlier, the desk lamp I have timed to help wake me up is doing its job, and if I come home at the right time on the right day, my little slanty apartment is filled with rainbows. The cat sometimes goes under the covers for a few minutes.
Tomorrow, I'm going home, or to a different home, one that doesn't fit as well as my apartment and my cat here. And that will break me out of just-another-day-- I don't decorate for holidays here, but my family does. There will be cookies, all of Mom's santas, a new stove insert now that we found out the old one violated a lot of fire codes, and a lot of animals. I'll get to see how they like the presents. I'll get to see a couple old friends.
And then spring semester comes.

Seasonal Affective Disorder is the weirdest damned thing.

I have so many happy memories of Christmas as a child, adolescent, young adult, and parent, and yet until the last few years every one of them is wrapped in melancholy. Since starting treatment for my "wintertime brain damage," Christmas has felt all wrong. It is as though I can't properly enjoy the happy parts of Christmas without sucking down the gloomy rage that I associate with it.

And I've only got a mild case. So Abi, sympathies.

My second daughter will be arriving more or less right with the Spring Equinox.

Can't think of a better reason to have hope and faith and cause for celebration.

In Ottawa, we've had more snow in the last month than we got all winter last year -- and this winter hasn't even started yet, officially. I've been thinking about writing a parody of the Sesame Street song "Fuzzy and Blue (and Orange)" as "Fluffy and White (and Yellow)".

"I have a bad feeling about this." I expect there's going to be a lot more snow before we're through the next season. Last night, I shovelled a heavy snowplough-deposited ridge out of my driveway for the fourth time this week. "What an evil fortune. And I am already weary!"

I'm tired and cranky, and I am so looking forward to a week of being able to sleep in, just a little bit.

Sarah S @14:
Congratulations!

You're coming to the end of the second trimester, then? That was always a good and energetic time. My first was on the same seasonal pattern (born early April). Makes for a good Christmas season.

Sarah S

Nope, that's just about the best reason there is, and a wonderful time for it, too. Congratulations.

Niall McAuley @ 1

Next Chapter: The Scouring

Right. You get the cleanser, I'll grab some rags. The vermin will come right off with a little elbow grease.

Best Christmas Eve service ever was when our 9-months-pregnant Episcopalian priest read out "For she was great with child." Not usually a laugh line...

A deep and enchanted sleep, waking with the thawing winds and growing grains, to put the countryside to the blush, and new life to the breeze.

What are you looking forward in the next season?

The glimmer of a hope that we can move back to California. Probably will never happen.

Bruce Cohen (SpeakerToManagers) #7: Oh, wow!!

Today is the best day of the year. Barely any sun to stab into your eyes, no ball of thermonuclear hellfire pouring its wrath into your skull every time you step outside. Everything is covered in soothing, soothing darkness.

From here on, it's downhill. It all just gets brighter and hotter. Alas.

Currently, no doubt due to Josh singing it lots, my favorite take on the cycle of the seasons is Talis Kimberly's "Uffington Hill". Lyrics can be found here.

This year, I hit 40 in my personal cycle. I'm looking forward to a Yule dinner with friends at Aquavit.

Next year? Hm. The con season cycle for us -- GAFilk for both of us, and me doing Dreamation alone while Josh does ConFlict (not sure of spelling) in January. Possibly Boscone in February. Intercon H in March, where our larp already has a waitlist. Contata and Origins in June. Worldcon and Mythcon in August -- trying to find a bit more material now that I've narrowed down my paper topic for Mythcon.

And hopefully much good reading, gaming, and otherwise having fun.

A winter's tale...

each phoenix vanishes in burst of fire
this year will pass we know from old to new
listen to the tale of hope and desire

we hear the legends passed from dam and sire
of how great hero the dread monster slew
each phoenix vanishes in burst of fire

each song is much repeated by each choir
the warming cup each time is thick as glue
listen to the tale of hope and desire

we watch the sparks fly higher ever higher
we walk outside on frost instead of dew
each phoenix vanishes in burst of fire

both wine and wit are much better drier
we tell ourselves as our spirits renew
listen to the tale of hope and desire

we all to higher purpose could aspire
instead we pause and take in all the view
each phoenix vanishes in burst of fire
listen to the tale of hope and desire

Sarah S #14: Congratulations! That's nothing but the truth.

abi, Bruce Cohen, and Fragano Ledgister--

Thanks so much!!

abi--She's scheduled to arrive on March 14--pi day--so I'm already into third trimester stuff, but feeling good and cheery, thanks!

Pete @ 3: Melbourne's the same. Strange weather even for Melbourne. Rain all over the place, and muggy-hot at the same time. I'm sitting here at three in the morning, sweating.

I can't get over how long the days are. I guess they must have been the same length this time last year and every year before that, but it's still a surprise.

Fragano Ledgister @ 25

Lovely. Somehow the images you raised in my head are from "The Wake" section of Sandman, where travelers through the universes regale each other with strange tales while what could well pass for the Wild Hunt rides escort to Sandman's catafalque. Phoenix indeed.

we leave so many matters of true art
to folk whose souls have never taken wing
or think that they're fit subjects of the mart
we want to think that we hear the sharp ring
of honest gold the clear and decent ching
of metal as we strike down from above
the message we all know is not the thing
but the securest bond is human love

we cannot go back now and just restart
with the initial energy and zing
since time and age will urge us to depart
but we desire to see another spring
for summer's light upon the purple ling
to cast away from us the cumbering glove
hope's in the child we push upon the swing
but the securest bond is human love

we can't forget that each must play a part
one plays the fool while you just play the king
the final word is kept safe in the heart
we listen while another plucks the string
upon the winter winds our blessings fling
and give the happy child another shove
joy gives each note an extra sweeter ping
but the securest bond is human love

prince what you want is what the people bring
while over each head floats the morning dove
each knows the happy moment when we sing
but the securest bond is human love

Bruce and Fragano: Frankly, I can't think of a better way to celebrate the turning of the year than in an Outbreak of Villanelles . . . . a Burst of Villanelles? a Villanelle Rush? Thank you both.

Thank you to the poets, and congratulations, Sarah.

For good reason, and no reason at all, I am having a very melancholy, thoughtful season. Last year at this time I was watching my mother die. (She died on Christmas Day.) I'm cold, and it's grey: I love the sun, and miss it. Still, I will celebrate the holy day, go to Midnight Mass if I can keep my eyes open that late, bake cookies -- I, the non-cook! -- for the joy of experiencing that wonderful aroma, call my brother in Arizona, and join my dear friends to celebrate the New Year. Maybe I'll see Sweeney Todd.

Blessings on you all; may your year be blessed, your days filled with light, and your dark nights with peace.

Sarah S @ 14... My best wishes to the family.

Serge: if you can... :)

Me, I was talking (over a greek supper in Graf) about things and it seemed to me that the Solstice shows, in the world, the theme that Easter is all about (rebirth, renewal, etc.) and that might be why the Christmas season is more joyful than the Easter.

It's also why those who don't know the religion might be forgiven for thinking it's the bigger Holy Day.

Mary Frances @ 31... An Outbreak of Villanelles? Sounds like salmonella.

Bruce Cohen(SpeakerToManagers) #29: Thanks. I've never read The Sandman. I just started from the tale of the phoenix as a myth explaining the cycles of time (the Great Year that you mention), and it grew from there.

Susan Cooper's "The Shortest Day":

And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, revelling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us - listen!
All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And now so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.

Trry Karney @ 34... Thanks. My fingers (and my toes) are crossed.

31: "The Fluorosphere. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villanelles. We must be careful."

Also: "Listen, kid, hokey religions and ancient rhyme schemes are no match for a good Go Bag by your side."

With a mighty leap, Sen. Dodd cleared the pit....

"My ship is the Friggin' Millenium Falcon. It made the Kessel run in less than 12 verses."

I love the turnings of the year. Autumn is probably my favorite season, but the solstice are my favorite days. The light is low, and warm; when it's here. It is more angular, harder and possessed of more depth in the shadows.

It's days of, "golden time" (this is different from my memories of youth, when I lived in snow and the light was golden, in a bath of white and blue. A promise of joys to come; in the midst of joys present).

And the solstice is always a time of awareness. The slowing of the summer, the passing of the winter. In those times change is ever-visible (where the spring and autumn are more quiet. The plants appear, and grow, and do it with deliberation. Then they slow, and go dormant, with that same deliberation).

And people are (barring those who suffer from the seasons) happy, at both times of the turning.

Then again, I just like the world.

Mary Frances #31: Thanks.

Here, the Solstice is the beginning of the end of winter. If we're going to get horrible sticking-and-staying snow, it'll be in the next two weeks. After that we can get some horrible windy days with sleet and snow that falls and melts and falls and melts and falls and freezes overnight, making the streets dangerous and walking an adventure of the not fun sort, but every day there's less chance of it freezing and staying frozen until the evening commute.

Every day that the sun goes down a little later and the Arctic freezes a little harder, the Japan Current flows a little further south. The early crocuses should be showing green sprouts by Epiphany, buds swelling on Indian Cherry by Valentines day. I have to start checking the cows once a day right after the New Year; the first calves will be born in late February.

I still have to small sacks of bulbs which must be planted, but today is the day we put up the Christmas tree, and there's six boxes of random R family stuff from Waco which my sister kicked out of her spare bedroom after ten years. Imagine. Just because it's our stuff.

How did we get so much stuff?

Url, qbrf gung ybbx yvxr na nfgrebvq gb lbh?

I find myself, at the Turning, unemployed and contemplative. And hopeful and more at peace.

It’s not a bad thing, my über-boss was trying to make my position so unpleasant that I’d get mad enough to walk out the door and then they’d not have to pay unemployment or anything else.

I rode it down. I got laid off the 13th, will be on payroll until the end of the month, then 10 weeks of severance, plus I can collect unemployment. And that will be in Kansas, were I work, which is much better than Missouri Unemployment.

Plus the person who is helping me with my job-change (I’ve been looking , in a fairly non-hard-core way, since mid-October) says that after the new year there will be more opportunities. Plus some others that I’ve applied for that take a while (IRS, etc.).

It’s all a good thing, the stress was getting really bad.

I’m also going to use my free time to get back into the daily writing habit, so that it becomes a habit and once I go back to work I can keep it up.

And I forgot how luminous and pretty my house is during sunlit winter days. It’s like being in a lantern. It’s oriented to take in more light now, less in the summer.

Susan S, your bébé is coming at a good time. My b-day is 3/16 and my sister’s is 3/15.

p.s. we saw a preview of Sweeney Todd last night. Holy crap. It will be worth paying for, we got to see it for free. Aha, just came across what is my dilemma with it, but I’m going to post it at my LJ, as an addition to the post I made last night.

Paula Helm Murray... I think you mean Sarah S, regarding the bébé.

As for your employment situation, my best wishes.

the sunset on a gloomy day will burn
with fires that each will echo on the tree
we celebrate with joy the sunreturn

dark night short day the wages that we earn
give us a chance to go upon a spree
the sunset on a gloomy day will burn

for warmer days and nights each heart must yearn
but for a while with green and red to see
we celebrate with joy the sunreturn

the ashes of the old go in their urn
we wait with knowledge that all will agree
the sunset on a gloomy day will burn

from all the evils that we seek to spurn
the kind and gentle heart at last shall flee
we celebrate with joy the sunreturn

we bid farewell to old care and concern
from pains and sorrows for a time shake free
the sunset on a gloomy day will burn
we celebrate with joy the sunreturn

alkalai @45:

Gung'f ab nfgrebvq...gung'f n fcnpr fgngvba.

Lizzy L., I am so sorry for your loss.

In 1994 I was in Newgrange, with my mother, for the solstice.

In 2002 I got my best Christmas present ever. I called her Claire, for the light. She'll be five on Tuesday.

This Is Just To Say

I have eaten
the poems
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast.

Forgive me
they were delicious
so radiant
and so warm.

Thank you all for the poetry, in this thread and in others!

My little girl was born on the winter solstice four years ago. As a wiccan and as one who is particularly attached to the solstice, it was the best present ever (though I didn't know it at the time--she was one month early). She is a little light-bearer. Her birthday symbolizes her perfectly.

And my husband and I recently separated, so I'm looking forward to that getting easier, too.

The day of the dead is gone and past,
We reach the heart of winter at last --
The days grow shorter,
Towards dwindling light we yearn,
When, hailed by Night's daughter,
The Sun, in glory, returns!

Hail, King of Winter!
Holly King, Farewell!
The Child of Oak once more with us will dwell.

I've gone on at some length about my feelings on the Solstice and the season here (assuming it isn't terribly gauche to link to myself); other than that, I can only say I hope everyone has a happy one, and a lovely and merry Mithras-mas as well.

And with that, I'm off to West Virginia for the next few days, hopefully to do some light-making of my own. Stay well, all, and here's a full and flowing holiday cup raised to you.

Vatima, thank you.

From a poem by St Clare of Assisi:

What you hold, may you always hold.
What you do, may you do and never abandon.
But with swift pace, light step,
unswerving feet,
so that even your steps stir no dust,
go forward...

A lyric I wrote a number of years ago. Got a solo bow from the stage of Carnegie Hall out of it (someone else wrote the music).

A Song for Yule

Old Sun is gone. His fading light
Is swallowed by the Solstice Night.

This night—His coronation—Dark
Proclaims the youthful Sun His heir;
The two Gods, clasping hands, remark
The one so black, the one so fair.

(In Spring and Fall the Lovers feed
Their lust before the sunset fades,
And being Gods, release Their seed
Across the sky in vivid shades.)

And we the Long Night Vigil keep,
And softly chant the night away;
And some the raging bonfire leap,
To bring the long-awaited day.

The Sun is born. Behold: the night
Is driven forth by brilliant Light.

Mary Frances @ 31

Thank you. How about a Vortex of Villanelles?

You guys are a bunch of optimists. It's nice to see, but I can't really live it right now.

My annual Christmas reading suits my winter mood. To condense it, perhaps:

THIS IS JUST TO SAY

We have taken
the journey
You had traced out
in the stars

and which
You were probably
intending
for more happy men

Forgive us
it was miraculous
but miracles
are hard.

It's turning into A Very Making Light Solstice over here. Every year, we open the doors at sunset (well, unlock; "open" and our cats would be running loose in the neighborhood) and invite everyone to drop by anytime all night long. We burn a Yule log, we make eggnog, and I break out the fruitcake.

This year, it's Troll-Bait Fruitcake and Savory Pie. Home-made pie crusts using the butter-grating and ice-skin tips from the thread. Vegetarian sausage this time for our vegetarian guests. And the fruit for the fruitcake got a good steeping in the brandy before being mixed into the batter. And instead of sprinkling, the brandy refreshes the nicely soaked cheesecloth that's wrapped around the cake. There will be cheese, but I'm not sure that it's particularly sharp.

Other than that, it's Tree's Best Eggnog, and the Orange Juice Tomato Soup recipe from the Wiccan Cookbook.

Bless the light! Bless the returning day! Sol invictus!

The word "Villanellapalooza" comes to mind. But that may be going too far.

Or maybe not. I love this place.

In the days of quick-dark two sun-circles ago, my beloved gave me an early solstice gift of blue LEDs.

Ah bright, bright blue, the color now proven to reset you circadian pacemaker: a color great for the morning, but not at all healthy late at night*. The light receptors that go straight to your hypothalamus have a peak sensitivity at 480nm, that is, blue. These control your circadian rhythms, and are entirely separate from your visual system of rods and cones.

It was a golite, which I can highly recommend. Its only fault is not having an automatic-on ability. Perhaps other/newer models have timers?

You can also build your own blue LED lightbox.

Staring at your monitor before 8am** may also provide a bit of benefit. And of course if there is a winter blue sky, use it.

(a corollary of the circadian rhythm research is that we probably ought not expose ourselves to too much blue light before bed: hard to do considering the color at which our TVs and Monitors, on average, glow. One can take melatonin at night, but that has risks***.)

--------
* Melatonin at night: sleepers delight. Melatonin at morning: drivers take warning.

** can't find the study. iirc getting the blue-light dose before 8am (or 9?) maximized the melatonin-clearing benefits. You can always go to sleep again after. I read online and have the lightbox, and then may go back to sleep. Much easier to get up after a lightbox session than without it.

*** can't find the study... iirc taking melatonin makes the body dependant on taking it (lowers the natural production), and can cause memory problems. I think I might purchase a blue-blocking yellow-screen for my monitor.

On reading the original post: OK, now I'm worried about the writers' strike. This is not someplace we want the series to end, or even linger unduly.

I love Solstice Week!

I love that stretch from around the second week of November through New Year's, here in Manhattan, where the light is just at the slant, and the density of the frequent cloud cover, that the combination creates shimmer of silverly, luminous magic in the air from about 3:30 to dusk. It's beautiful, and points up what a beautiful city NYC is.

After that though, I wanna be in the Caribbean.

Love, C.

Kate Y. @62,

Fear not, for reality shows can be expanded during a strike season.

I hadn't been watching this one, but was drawn in. I know that Janus was an early favorite, but his duplicity makes me think he'll be voted off soon enough. So far nine are gone, the tenth nearly so.

To mark Soltice and the first day of winter we're going to take our little ones out to a wonderful wetland preserve near us and feed birds. Chickadees, jays and the occassional downy woodpecker. These birds will come and eat out of your hand if you are quiet enough. A hard thing to convince a three-year old to do, so failing that we'll scatter the seed on the ground. The birds and chipmunks will enjoy it.

That is, if the snow that was dumped on us last week hasn't turned to absolute slush from the rain and possible plus eight temperatures this weekend. Would you believe this is in Hamilton? Not as much snow as Ottawa, but still. Plus eight?

Thanks for the correction Serge, you're right (I'm horrid with names...)

Ah, the joys of language drift. Tonight is mid-winter, when winter begins.

I'll have to ponder the light in the dark question, and perhaps shift my gamma in the evenings.

abi #58:

The solstice has a promise: winter's end.
The shortening shadows are a cheering sight,
hope and rejoicing still our human right.

We do not break, but in great pain we bend,
not dreaming of the ones who share our plight;
the solstice has a promise: winter's end.

Warm messages brother and sister send
bring us together in the cheering rite;
dawn comes to finish even this long night.
The solstice has a promise: winter's end.

Toronto is falling out of the domain of the Lady of the Ice and into the warm south; we have snow, but there will be rain, and warm day this week. I wonder how soon it will be that we get the southland arthropods, and what out of the green world will succumb.

Some of the best memories of my youth are of walking out into snowfields beyond the lights and sounds of man, looking up into the winter stars, and listening to that ancient silence.

There is good in silence, and in darkness, as much as in cheer and light, when you want them.

In, oh, about five minutes I'll be starting to put the boar shoulder in the oven -- honey apple ginger glaze, shallots, small potatoes, carrots -- and deciding what to do with the mushrooms.

Eala Earendel engla beorhtast,
ofer Middangeard monnum sended,
and sodfasta sunnan leoma,
tohrt ofer tunglas þu tida gehvane
of sylfum þe symle inlihtes."

Constance Ash #63: In that last, you are not alone.

Edinburgh. Sunrise was around 8:40am; sunset was around 3:45pm. We had approximately seven hours of daylight. The weather was cold -- didn't get above a couple of degrees above freezing all day, sub-zero before and after nightfall -- with added fog coming up off the Firth.

Yes, I am gulping vitamin D supplements and sitting in front of a 20" LED-backlit monitor shining sky blue in my face. Why do you ask? (Yawns ...)

#64: I am much heartened.

Now, can anyone here point to soundtracks or compilation albums for the Winter Solstice Show? The radio stations keep pumping out holiday music, but they're all from the sappy TV-movie remake....

I'd like to have winter songs to sing, without pledging allegiance to gods I don't believe in.

#61, Kathryn from Sunnyvale -

I have my light-therapy box on a standard lamp-timer. I think it cost less than five dollars, and it has been totally worth it in increasing my compliance with using the lightbox.

Kate @ #72, do a search at iTunes for Winter Songs. There are over a hundred listed, some Christmas-y, many more not (Joni Mitchell's River?).

It's been gratifying to be able to use iTunes even without an iPod or even a Mac, but my song library (mostly copied from already-owned CDs) is endangering my disk capacity.

Winter Songs.

Linkmeister @ 74: Joni Mitchell's River?

I'd say so:

It's coming on Christmas
They're cutting down trees
They're putting up reindeer
Singing songs of joy and peace

We watched the sunrise from bed this morning; I was actually coherent enough to remember, and so spouse opened the blinds. At this time of year, the sunlight comes straight in the big southeast-facing window, and falls all over the floor and the bed, to the great delight of the cat, who is giving her solar cells a real workout. On weekends, when we get up later, it shines into the bathroom just right to reflect off my bath water and make all sorts of dancing reflections.

I've been spending the last two days making enough tiramisu and madeleines to take to a party tonight, while spouse made chocolate meringues.

(Sorry, Xopher, the test run of buttercreams proved too rich and got nixed, although the hand-rolling worked quite well. I think I'll figure out some way next year to riff off the whipped-cream-filled meringues I got addicted to in Venice and produce tiny molded ones filled with exotic flavors.)

After tonight, I'll take a couple days off, and then the cooking cycle begins again: on Monday, more tiramisu for a Christmas buffet at friends, along with apple chutney and bread pudding for Christmas Eve dinner, and then more madeleines on Christmas afternoon, for that fresh-baked sensation.

Does this qualify as a winter song?

Winter is icumen in,
Lhude sing Goddamm,
Raineth drop and staineth slop,
And how the wind doth ramm!
Sing: Goddamm.
Skiddeth bus and sloppeth us,
An ague hath my ham.
Freezeth river, turneth liver,
Damn you, sing: Goddamm.
Goddamm, Goddamm, 'tis why I am, Goddamm...

Ezra Pound

Maybe not...

Lizzy, if that one goes in, then "The Second Coming" should slouch in as well.

One moment of eternity that comes and goes;
its line of passing points to light from dark.
The still point of the year upon which turns the arc.
The nadir of the day is reached and now it grows.
The cold, electric air suffused with blue-gray glows,
that gather at the turning point to spark
the change that will make lush from stark,
and turn the year's ebbs once again to flows.
Around the hearth the air is golden warm;
filled with smells of feast and season's cheer,
the talk stays close to earth, and kith, and kin.
The outer world turns on moment arm
about the fulcrum of the departing year,
as here inside we live in moment's skin.

Tim @ #76, that'll teach me to misremember the song.

Oh, dear, it's even worse. Mitchell's River is on Blue, which I own and have since its initial pressing back in the early 1970s.

A number of years ago I filked "White Christmas":

I'm dreaming of a bright Christmas
Just like the ones I had at home.
Where pohutukawa and lilies flower,
And surfers ride the milky foam.

I'm dreaming of a bright Christmas
Even if those mozzies bite!
May the sun shine into the night,
And may all your Christmases be bright!

In fact it's traditional for it to rain on Christmas Day, probably because people persist in scheduling barbecues for the occasion. But the Christmas lilies in my parents' garden are flowering, a friend and I watched the surfers at the beach the other evening as rata (a pohutukawa relative) flamed along the coast road, my colleagues have been rubbing lotion on inflamed mosquito bites, and for quite some time it's been light long after my nominal bedtime and even longer before I aspire to be awake. Only please God no worse earthquakes and we're all set for the big day.

I had great hopes for this year, despite coming into it crushed by seasonal depression. I was writing more than ever, spurred on by a close friend that I adore. The year has a 7 in it, which is my favourite number. It was supposed to be a wonderful year.

Six months ago, when the days were getting longer and brighter and my mind was whirling with the joy and the light, the death of my cat Izzy ripped a hole into it. My constant companion for nearly six years, across four moves, two states, and to another continent was torn away from me by a sudden and disasterous illness. It dimmed the bright, happy time I'd looked forward to since the past December.

Now I'm still struck by bouts of guilt and grief, but this winter weighs much less heavy upon me than the last. I have more to worry about, but this winter I have a light therapy lamp that keeps the darkness from flattening me, I have a clear (if uncertain) path to follow, and above all, I really, truly know what I want to do with my life.

All the same, I wish my little friend was still here to share it with me. This wasn't the year it was supposed to be.

Renatus, I have an idea of you how you feel.

Skyler was an old friend who left my wife and me far too soon.

Renatus, I have a great deal of sympathy. A lot of things have happened recently that make me think of my long- and short-term deceased cats (if we get a cat as a kitten, they tend to live nearly 20 years). They were all a joy, each in their own way. But we have a continuum of cats, which may be impossible in your situation. (we had all the severely geriatric cats pass on a year ago in November so this spring in may we got two kittens from the same litter, they are giving great joy as well as occasional great trials...)

Blessings and peace for the new year.

Linkmeister @ 82:

You too?

I still use my turntable now and then; there are things I've got on vinyl that either haven't been released on CD, or that I can't afford to acquire on CD...

I've unfortunately been welcoming the waning solstice with the sort of headache that leaves me thinking anything else would be the lesser of two evils - but have somehow, in the process of trying to endure the wretched thing, finally figured out how to properly sharpen plane blades[0]!

[0] ... and on the grounds that it wasn't going to make anything worse, have managed to produce a sackful of light, fluffy, curly shavings of poplar! It's tempting, but almost certainly a bad idea to see just how well they'd burn...

In five years the Mayan calendar ends.

Not-so coincidentally, in five years to the day (I'm West Coast!), the solstice sun's path will be perfectly aligned with the Milky Way.

Which is some pretty impressive calculating, to my mind.

Linkmeister @ #74: This is why we purchased a terabyte drive. What is scary is how much of it we got, legitimately, for free. I worked for a bookstore for three years and the manager liked people to take home the promo CDs— but no more than five a week. I got a lot of classical that way, and the entire collection of Dar Williams.

Renatus @ #84: Woobah.* I know I am going to be devastated when my kitties are no longer with me, but I'll keep being owned by cats because horrible though it is to lose them, it's worse to not have them at all.

*an expression of sympathy amongst my friends, as in "that's terrible and I don't know what else to say."

Steve Buchheit #8:
The Year is mostly dead...

Pete #3 & Vassilissa #28:
The last three weeks in Auckland have been cloudy and overcast giving the light a migraine-inducing glare. Vassilissa, hope you weren't overly affected by the flashfloods.

The days are longer, hotter and more humid. Was woken up at 5am today by the morning chorus. The pohutukawa, a.k.a 'New Zealand Christmas trees' are blooming. Signifiers of Christmas are in evidence in the muzak & tinsel in malls & frenetic activity as folk squeeze in last-minute shopping.

Oh yes, the other seasonal song I remember is John Myers Myers's "I Remember Gaudy Days". Well, it's sort of seasonal.

(And there's one that begins, "I shall go as a wren in spring", and works through a year of seasons, shapeshifting, and chasing. I found that in Mastering Witchcraft, but I'd not be surprised to learn it came from somewhere else.)

R.M. Koske @73 re:61

With the GoLite one has to press a button to start it, and that's with the power on. I can program in how long and how bright it will be, but I cannot tell it to start at a particular time.

(I can imagine the designers saying: "Pressing a button can't be that difficult." They were not thinking about what extra-sleepy people need.)

Way back when I had a shop-light with two full-spectrum bulbs plugged into a timer as my lightbox. That worked ok, but the blue-LED device is magic.

Hogfather was adapted for TV last year in the UK, rather successfully I thought. I think someone's broadcasting it here in the US, or use the usual Dr Who watching techniques.

Even in tropical Hawaii the days get shorter and I still get a touch of SAD. I have done much better in recent years, after I realized that I need to talk to my neurofeedback practitioner to seasonally adjust the frequency range in my EEG feedback sessions.

We've settled on the solstice as our main winter holiday to celebrate; what holiday would be better suited for a marriage of a Jew and a Zen Buddhist/Subgenius/atheist/Crowley-influenced wanna-be occultist to celebrate? Usually we give our gifts on the solstice, but this year my daughter won't be back from college until late Sunday night, so we'll wait until Monday to exchange gifts.

I have received some early gifts from the universe this year.

In our last therapy session together, our foster daughter told us that she was grateful for our "putting up with all her shit", and that she appreciated that we'd stuck with her when her family wouldn't. It feels like she is slowly starting to get herself together a little more; she recently managed to get a holiday season job and hold it down for a little while, though she quit after a few weeks.

And this week I was offered a permanent position at the company where I've been working on contract, and made the decision to take it. It's been a difficult choice, because I've been attracted to the variety, better pay, and sense of independence in doing contract work, while at the same time maddened and frustrated by the long lulls between work. I like the people here, though - they seem to believe in treating each other well, and I've been offered profit-sharing. Really, though, I think the clincher is simply feeling that they actually appreciate my work.

So I'll be crossing this solstice into the new season with, perhaps, a little extra stability in my life. I'll see in the new year. Sol invictus.

Clifton, I wish you well. I may have a position at a friend's place of employment performing a new position for which I keep thinking of issues to deal with. And then my mind stretched to go, 'why, if you get this position, don't you try to train as a safety manager".

So it goes.

#93: It's running on the ION (Previous PAX) network on Sunday the 23rd at 7:00 pm (PST . . . I assume that other time zones have their own showing at that time.)

Sol Invictus to all here!

I worked until about six this morning (December 21, US) on my chocolates, slept for about three hours, packed them, then went to the mailbox store and sent them out Next Day Air, at a combined cost of over USD 300. Remind me, please, to write on my 2008 calendar "Begin Christmas chocolates" on about August 15.

I then went home and crashed like a 747 hitting Mount Everest. I woke up only on the several occasions my boyfriend called me, the latest being about 11 PM EST. This time I decided that eating some actual food (I'd had about 4 chocolates and a piece of gum all day, nothing else) might be a good idea, so I ate a little. Fed myself another way by reading Making Light; thank you all for making it so nourishing.

I have a couple of other random comments to make, then I'm going back to bed. Still feel exhausted.

joann 77: What is this "too rich" of which you speak? I must be unfamiliar with that concept.

.
[Posted from 221.227.95.194]

I'll take two!

glinda @ #87, I found an Audio Technica turntable with outputs for a laptop for $87 recently, so I bit the bullet and bought it. I admitted that rehabilitating my 1973 Pioneer turntable was probably not going to be feasible for less than that, and more than likely a lot more. Out here I don't have access to local repair people who know what they're doing in quite the same way that a resident of a big city might, so I'd have had to find someplace to fix the Pioneer and then ship the thing to that place.

Congratulations to those with new family and jobs.

Renatus, we lost a good friend this year who had been with us for her entire life -- Marian, a siamese and my wife's favorite. We were down to one cat (we have had as many as 10), her brother, Robin. While replacing her was impossible, we did adopt a new calico, Tikka, when a friend was not able to keep her.

This was the year when I recognized if my life had a classic three-act structure, Act III was well underway. We hesitate adopting because we are not sure about how to handle cats that would survive us.

Lizzy L., I lost my mother two years ago at the same time that I was deathly ill from pancreatitis. In fact, we were both in the same hosptial at the same time, not too far away from each other. Not being able to help with the various arrangements made it hurt a bit more, but there was some healing this year. My sister and I finally were able to charter a boat out of Moss Landing to scatter her ashes where she wanted out in the Pacific. It was a good boat and crew, and we headed out on grey Sunday morning. Not far out from the harbor entrance we picked up a close escort of three humpback whales, which swam from side to side, diving under the boat as we motored due west. The crew was astonished and said that they had never seen anything like it that close to the harbor.

Knowing how carefully Mom planned every occasion, my sister and I were not surprised, somehow.

You and your family will remain in my prayers this season.

@ 98.

Does anyone else get delayed onset SAD? I can usually make it through December and the beginning of January all right, but after that everything goes downhill. I don't recover until the end of March, went the warmth comes back.

Bruce@29: I think you mean "Worlds' End" rather than "The Wake". (Note the apostrophe, btw...that is where it goes.)

abi@49: Ha! And, for the first time ever, I've understood a rot13'd comment without having to decode it. It helped that I've done enough cryptograms that when I see a four letter word with the pattern xyzx, I automatically think of "That".

Bruce@80: Very nice.

Forgive me - my muse just discovered Villanelles, and wouldn't let me sleep until I wrote him one.

Big Bang

Two thousand twelve, December twenty one
The world ends, not in fire, or in ice
An asteroid comes hurtling 'round the sun

The KT boundary marks the best known one
The dinosaurs snuffed out, survived by mice
Two thousand twelve, December twenty one

We came, made fire, steel, spear, knife and gun
Built cities, empires, tamed the sand and ice
An asteroid comes hurtling 'round the sun

Tunguska - 'bout a dozen megaton
That time it was just trees that paid the price
Two thousand twelve, December twenty one

We counted cold war days off one by one
In fear we'd end by nuclear device
An asteroid comes hurtling 'round the sun

The Mayans, counting since this world begun
A long count - thirteen baktuns would suffice
Two thousand twelve, December twenty one
An asteroid comes hurtling 'round the sun

and there's six boxes of random R family stuff from Waco which my sister kicked out of her spare bedroom after ten years.

One of the things I hope to get done this holiday season is to finally liberate the bulk of my library, which I left on the shelves in my old room when I moved out of my parents' house a couple of years ago.

The main challenge (and both the reason why I keep putting it off and the reason why it increasingly seems necessary) is that, rather than become for instance a spare bedroom, that room has become the-room-that-you-dump-stuff-just-inside-the-door-when-you-can't-think-where-to-put-it; moving the books will likely require mountaineering equipment and possibly a team of sherpas.

Paul A @106:

We brought our book collection across from the old house at the beginning of this month. The bulk of it had been boxed up in our loft for a few years.

Having the books around us is even more pleasant than I thought it would be. We both go through phases of gloating and cackling* as we survey all these easily accessible volumes.

Having your library around you is good. It will be worth the effort.

-----
* OK, the Hub doesn't actually cackle. But I do enough for two.

Pete @105:

Love it. Is that really your first villanelle?

Re #105:

There's apparently a 1-in-75 chance that Mars will be hit this January by a 50-meter object.

#92, Kathryn from Sunnyvale -

Ah, yes, that would make a timer completely useless. Drat.

Cut to: Darkseid, gazing at the return of the sun, hands behind his back. His face inscrutable, but knowing that his time will come again.

Though the sinus headaches aren't pleasant and my digestion's definitely off (none of those elaborate winter cookies or feasts for me!), the views from my window are magnificent: the low light just after sunrise and before sunset gleaming on the snows atop the San Francisco Peaks, revealing the complex folds of the Rim, and casting gorgeous shadows on the weird hillocks and hoodoes out on the plains. Then there are the winter birds -- juncos, sparrows, and a small falcon that likes to sit on trees a long way across the street from our place. The ravens have taken to hanging out in larger groups, sometimes half a dozen all flying at once (though never more than three in close formation). And, in the afternoons, the cat loves to lie in bright sunlight with his white tummy fur seeming to glow.

We didn't get the promised bit of snow yesterday morning but had some in previous weeks, just enough for me to ogle for a while. Though my husband has to work on Christmas Day, he has the 24th off, so we can open presents then (definite goodies, if few surprises).

All in all, I like this time of year.

Steve C. @ #85: What a lovely boy. I'm sorry you lost him. I know what you mean about far too soon--Izzy was only, at most, six and a half, and such a trooper before she fell so suddenly ill.

That's one of the things that hurts the worst--it was much too soon. I was supposed to still have her around in five to ten years, a charmingly grumpy little old lady cat who kept me company while I wrote and laid over my forearms when she thought I needed to be done.

Paula @ #86: But we have a continuum of cats, which may be impossible in your situation.

I'm afraid so--small (52 square meters, about a quarter of which houses the washroom and the sauna) flat housing two continually broke young people. Not that I wouldn't take in a herd of them if I happened across any needing homes. Right now, though, my biggest obstacle is my worry and paranoia that another health disaster would happen, that I wouldn't catch it in time, that I didn't do enough with Izzy, and that I wouldn't be able to handle the too-young death of another cat under my care. Someday, I'll get better, or find out about a cat that desperately needs a home...

Your blessings are much appreciated.

B. Durbin @ #89, Claude @ #101: Thank you for your words. It really, really helps me to see that others know and understand.

For now--I try not to think about it too much because it leads to chasing my own tail around a rut. The hole in my heart is healing around the edges, and things are pretty good. I have books to write and, in the immediate, chocolate truffles to experiment with.

Luthe @ #103: I sort of had the same thing before I got my light therapy lamp and after the extremes of Finnish seasons brought my SAD into undeniable force--the long days of Finnish summer gave me enough steam to run off of momentum when the days started getting very dark and I could manage until sometime into December. Around Christmas I'd slam into a wall and not recover well until about April. Having that lamp to mitigate the darkness before it had a chance to drag at me has done wonders, even though I did have a couple of weeks this month where I had to vegetate.

Renatus @113:
the long days of Finnish summer gave me enough steam to run off of momentum when the days started getting very dark and I could manage until sometime into December. Around Christmas I'd slam into a wall and not recover well until about April. Having that lamp to mitigate the darkness before it had a chance to drag at me has done wonders

This reflects my experience in Scotland. From October until April, my emotional state was one of steady erosion of any emotional strength I'd build up in the light half of the year. A light box helps to slow the erosion. So did a desk lamp at work.

Last year was particularly bad, because I lost access to my regular desk during October. This meant I had no lamp, which sped up the erosion. I ran out sooner than in previous years.

This year, having moved somewhat south and to a clearer climate, I am hoping to slow the gradual wearing down of my joy. I will miss the overflowing energy of summer, though.

Xopher #97:

I personally don't believe in "too rich" either, but both spouse and the host for the party in question have well-defined opinions on the subject. It seems to involve a combination of too much sugar, too much butter, and too much flavor all rolled, as it were, into one.

My own opinion is that solstice season is a time for excess, a time of warmth and flavor and substance.

Especially without SAD, the solar procession strikes me as less a story arc than an ostinato; the procession is perfectly cyclic, but chains of events have only a loose connection to it. (Sometimes very loose; witness the last named tropical low of the 2005 season being in 2006.)
     In Boston, after a couple of false starts winter has come early; there have been several years with snow earlier, but I don't remember any in my 36 years here that had 2 feet fallen in the city before the solstice. (Even the record 1992-93 season (~100", vs ~40 average) wasn't this big this early. We're expecting Graydon's mild-wave tomorrow; \maybe/ the piles will shrink a little.) We've had a triumphal lunch for a release that AFAIK is \still/ not ready to ship -- followed by the departure of a long-term colleague who was the only person with overall vision of the product I work on. Yesterday I couldn't find anyone willing to ship a seasonal gift of wine; last night I again saw someone who's been coming to my chorus's holiday concerts as long as I've been singing them (31 years now), and in three days I will have dinner with people I've known just as long. I can no longer ride either life or a bicycle as well as I used to -- the physical and mental shock absorbers aren't what they once were -- but I'm fit enough for most things (went whitewater rafting this summer for the first time in a decade!), and certainly more fit than my parents were at this age; so that will do.
     So there's no personal arc either, beyond the fact that I'm thinking of retirement in the nearer term; my father (who worked to 65.5) would be shocked, but I don't think he ever realized quite how different a world this is. (And for all his scholarly focus, he was far better at people than I am, which allowed him to start a third career after the war's end smashed his first two.)

shadowsong: I \may/ have been present when that was first read to an audience (memory is tangled -- I'm on the record that Lurtsema recites it on); I still think it's one of her best works. She spoke here last spring about what it was like being "Jack [Langstaff]'s tame writer"; I will always miss him, but it was warming to hear the recollections of an aspect I saw little of in real time.

Paula: I was ]lucky[ enough to be in a similar situation many years ago. (The ueberboss was so bad I'd already picked the fractional job that would slightly stanch the wounded bank account while I searched full-time, but I had less unemployment comp.) May your fortunes brighten with the year.

Durbin@89: a purchasable terabyte drive? God, that makes me feel old; I was in my late twenties when I was introduced to "the Whale", which could hold a terab\i/t in several refrigerator-size cabinets if fully instantiated.

abi:
     @107: yes, very pleasant. For a decade I had \one/ bookshelf unit; I boxed books that had been read last year to make room for ]new[ purchases (mostly cheap-used, in those days). Having enough space to shelve everything (and enough money for the shelves) was woonnderful.
     general: I've seen just enough of mild SAD to have some idea how bad it can be. OTOH, I'm envious that you find summer energizing; even moving to New England from the near-South hasn't gotten me completely free of a level of heat that I find debilitating.

Claude, thanks. My heart to yours. Renatus, so sorry.