{"id":4304,"date":"2019-12-21T18:50:44","date_gmt":"2019-12-21T23:50:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/?p=4304"},"modified":"2019-12-21T18:50:46","modified_gmt":"2019-12-21T23:50:46","slug":"winter-solstice-in-the-moonlight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/?p=4304","title":{"rendered":"Winter Solstice in the Moonlight"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Tonight is the winter solstice and\nthus the longest night of the year. It is the beginning of winter, a season marked\nby hibernation and cold, by darkness and the absence of growth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The moon is also waning tonight. It\nwill continue to diminish as we move into Christmas, growing smaller and\nsmaller until it almost seems gone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the things I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve learned from\nliving near the ocean is how moonlight alters things. It does everywhere, of\ncourse, but there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so much openness here and so few distractions. A walk on\nthe beach on a moonless night becomes more of a stumbling, both beautiful and eerie,\nhouses and dunes and sky and ocean all cast in dark shadows, the line between\nsea and sky invisible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve learned this, too: When the\nmoon \u00e2\u20ac\u0153returns\u00e2\u20ac\u009d after Christmas and begins to wax, it will cast its light across\nthe Atlantic toward the shoreline before moving higher in the sky. And when it\ndoes, even though it only reflects a small amount of the sun\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s light, the beach\nwill become luminous at night, a world made new.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m told the moon itself is a dark\ngray color, like pavement almost, and that in its best moments it only reflects\nmaybe twelve percent of the sun\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s light. I read somewhere that Saturn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s moon\nEnceladus, by contrast, is the most reflective body in our solar system. If we\ncould walk its surface like we have our moon\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, they say we would see that it\nis bright white, the color of fresh snow. I wonder how the world of the\nAtlantic would look under such reflection. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though I am busy, I have put up more\nlights this year, both inside and out, than I have in years. I peck away at it,\nadding a strand here and there, stockpiling candles and lanterns and fairy\nlights. This year, to mark over a decade-and-a-half in the South, where snow is\nrare and multiple Christmas trees are not, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve added a second tree, snow-flocked\nand beach-themed. The snow reminds me of where I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m from, I tell myself. But\nthen again, I know, so does the beach theme. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tonight, the house lights are off\nand the Christmas lights on. Soon, I will finish with this and the evening will\nbegin. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll light more candles and we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll clink our glasses of Bordeaux. And if,\nif we are wise, we will think about the moonlight that will wane at first but\nthen always, always wax long across the waves again. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tonight is the winter solstice and thus the longest night of the year. It is the beginning of winter, a season marked by hibernation and cold, by darkness and the absence of growth. The moon is also waning tonight. It will continue to diminish as we move into Christmas, growing smaller and smaller until it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4306,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2339,2338,2340,2337],"class_list":["post-4304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-islandlife","tag-moonlight-in-winter","tag-moonlight-on-the-atlantic","tag-solstice-light","tag-winter-solstice-on-the-beach"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}