{"id":4330,"date":"2021-12-21T22:31:33","date_gmt":"2021-12-22T03:31:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/?p=4330"},"modified":"2021-12-21T22:31:36","modified_gmt":"2021-12-22T03:31:36","slug":"the-light-of-winter-solstice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/?p=4330","title":{"rendered":"The Light of Winter Solstice"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This afternoon, I spent a little time out in the yard, adding another strand of lights to one of our palm trees, a small protest against the dreariness of the day. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s winter solstice, I reminded myself as I worked, the darkest day of the year. Later, after dusk, I stepped outside and into the road in front of my house to see the effects of my addition. I am no artist of lights, even with LCB\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s earlier help, so it was hardly perfect. But still. Lit palm trees, I decided, make up for all the late December darkness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Exactly two years ago, on the winter solstice, I wrote about a different kind of light: moonlight, a light spoken into existence long, long ago. Unlike the lights I hung today, this light is beyond my reach, forever beyond what I could create with a thousand strands of lights. From one night to the next, it casts a wide tapestry of artwork that is ever present, ever changing, and ever reflecting of something greater than itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the reposting of that original post:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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

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

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

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

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

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

This afternoon, I spent a little time out in the yard, adding another strand of lights to one of our palm trees, a small protest against the dreariness of the day. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s winter solstice, I reminded myself as I worked, the darkest day of the year. Later, after dusk, I stepped outside and into the […]<\/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":[2351,2340,2350,2349],"class_list":["post-4330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-islandlife","tag-christmas-reflections","tag-solstice-light","tag-solstice-on-the-beach","tag-winter-solstice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4330","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=4330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4330\/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=4330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}