Winter Solstice

Ah, one of my favorite days – the nadir of year and the return of the sun. This is, of course, one of the four great demarcations of the solar calendar and the old ways – winter solstice, summer solstice, vernal equinox, and autumnal equinox, the compass points of human understanding of the seasons and the axial tilt. Being in South Texas, the winter solstice is not very impressive, but of course the more northern the latitude the more impressive the event seems to be. This summer I made a pilgrimage to Newgrange in Ireland and like most tourists marveled at the age and dedication such a structure demonstrates, and any person interested in archeology knows how many cultures have noted the passages of the sun and stars by their architecture, but I don’t want to go after the astronomical aspects of this day as much as I want to look at its essential marginality and ambivalence.

This is a trickster blog, after all, and I have already said much about Trickster’s ambivalences, but as the Lord of the Roads, the Lord of the Hinges, Keeper of the Margins, Flaunter of the Limits, Trickster seems to dwell especially at the solstices and the equinoxes. Our manias and excesses at this time of year are bolsters against the fear of darkness, death, and cold, and we have, as we should, a deep hunger for light, life, and warmth. The solstices and the equinoxes are clear reminders of the liminality of our time sense and the larger perspective of the changing and never fully understood universe.

I know I am ignoring here the funnier aspects of Trickster time, but the many of the games we play at this time of year are fractals of humor and stress, of anxieties and hope, and of appetites and limits that reiterate some amazing landscape of our own imaginative selves. The lampshade drunk at a New Year’s celebration is probably not too far from any of us (not even the most puritan); so let us put another log on the fire, or damp the solar fires, let us stand on the cusp of time and enjoy the laughter of our existence!

.............................Sappy Solstice