If you’re watching the eclipse, make sure you check out the warnings my friend sent (she should know):
And now “Total Eclipse of the Heart” is in my head:
If you’re watching the eclipse, make sure you check out the warnings my friend sent (she should know):
And now “Total Eclipse of the Heart” is in my head:
Today is the Vernal Equinox. It caught be by surprise this year but that fast-changing light might account for how unsettled I’ve been feeling in the last week. But the forsythia and the hyacinths are out and I even saw an apricot tree in bloom yesterday–I think it’s really happening.
(Textile Pattern for Kimono, Shin Bijutsukai ca 1900-1902, Japanese design Magazine)
(Charles Sheeler, Spring Interior 1927, oil on canvas)
(Per Adolfsen, Twins 2022, colored pencil, chalk)
We’ve made it to the Winter Solstice! Here we are in the wheel of the year and the upward spin begins after today.
To celebrate, you could listen to this 1978 album (which includes a reading of Susan Cooper’s “The Shortest Day”). You could do some of the rituals suggested here. As that post says:
What do you want to come forth out of the unknown?
Well, here we are, rolling into the dark season. Over the last 17 years (my god) of blogging here, I’ve gone from truly dreading it to being mostly OK with it. Medication helps a lot, of course, but so does realizing that the seasons passing are “not such an awful linear progress but instead a looping and a return.”
So here are some vibes for Fall (and don’t forget the classic vibes of September 21).
(The Sun, 1909 by Edvard Munch)
It’s the longest day of the year for the Northern Hemisphere and a good day to go watch the sun set, have a bonfire, pick some flowers, or even listen to the “Hymn to the Sun” from Philip Glass’s Akhnaten.
You can even join me in setting a theme for the summer. I might need to workshop mine a little, but right now it’s “The Summer of Ease and Abundance and Enjoyment and Maximalism and the Kind of Rest and Spaciousness I Haven’t Experienced in a Summer Since About 1995.”
However you choose to celebrate, enjoy the light today. Happy solstice, friends!
It’s the Autumnal Equinox today and I, for one, am ready for this Autumn of Ease & Abundance. And I think it’s off to a great start–look at these glucose numbers for Toby on his increased insulin dose this week!
(For reference, he was averaging between 300 – 450 for numbers on the lower dose.) He’s already SO much sassier–I think he’s ready for the Summer of Struggle to be over, too.
So yes, happy fall! Don’t forget to be pagan about it in between checking your cat’s blood sugar.
The Vernal Equinox was Sunday, which means we’re finally in the half of the year where the nights aren’t longer than the days. We did it. It’s all right.
(Really loving NINA’s covers lately–check out this one too.)
(Art by Gottess on Instagram)
We made it to the darkest day, which means it’s only going to get lighter from here. Light a candle, build Stonehenge, read this bit from the Modern Women newsletter:
See in the dark, feel into all the messages the emptiness brings.
Gather up all the repeated complaints and yearnings, throw them all in the fire that needs to burn up this year. Make a promise to do something different, as soon as you’ve rested and restored, as much as you can.
Next year at this time, you’ll be someone different.
We started going to Great Salt Lake for sunset on the solstice when I was in high school, I think, and it’s become a pretty solid tradition. It’s where Doc met my brother and his family for the first time; Mom even made it out there when she was in the depths of chemo.
Not getting Seasonal Affective Disorder because of my meds has really made the Summer Solstice feel less poignant and panicky (things are less panicky now in general, thank you meds) but it still feels right to stop for a second and enjoy the heat and the light and watch the sun go down.
We made it, friends. After today the light returns, the calendar changes, and I think we can hope a little bit. Light a candle tonight, literally or metaphorically burn something you no longer want to carry, and plant the seeds for a better world.
Here is a poem by The Dark Is Rising author Susan Cooper for the shortest day today (and here’s an NPR interview with her and the illustrator of the book version of the poem).
The Shortest Day
by Susan Cooper
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, reveling.
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.