The Winter Solstice: Return of the Light

 

Saint Lucia Swedish Celebration 

The longest night, the sweet and Blessed Dark, and the Rebirth of the Sun.  Perhaps the oldest of all human holy days, and source of many different sacred celebrations. In Sweden it is celebrated with St. Lucia's Day.  "Lucia" derives from the Latin word for "Light", and one such story concerns the arrival of a Christian martyr named Lucia who appeared in white, with a crown of light around her head, to give succor to the hungry and suffering.  Different stories and traditions surround St. Lucia in different countries, but all focus on central themes of service  and light.  Lucia symbolizes the coming end of the long winter nights and the return of light to the darkened world.

 

As the dark is holy, the generative place of rest, so is the Light holy.  On this, the longest and darkest night,  we light our candles and our bonfires as ancestors have done for uncounted centuries, around the world and in many languages, before us.  We bring light to darkness, light to each other, and we honor the Blessing of the Return of the Sun.  And I also reflect on the healing and creative powers of  what poet David Whyte called "sweet darkness", the times of silence and incubation that are wedded to the times of  illumination.

For myself, I ask what  Light I might hope to  ignite within myself.  What light can I offer that might illuminate not only my path, but perhaps assist the pathways of  other Beings of the Earth as well?  

"To go in the dark with a light

is to know the light. 

To know the dark, go dark.

 Go without sight, and find

 that the dark, too, blooms and sings,

 and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings."

Wendell Berry

Winter Solstice, Willits Community (2012)
 Photos courtesy JJ Idarius and Ann Waters