Winter Solstice

Blog–12-21-2022—-Hideaway Pond—-hideawaypond.com

Tempus fugit. Last night at the stroke of midnight, the entire world stepped (or slept) in turn through a portal in time and into another season. The inexorable pulse of the cosmos. Some seek to understand– even control– that pulse. The dance of celestial bodies in infinite time and space.

Scientists contemplate complex phenomena such as lightspeed, Interstellar gases, gravity, pressure and the birth of stars. The “depth” of mysterious ‘black holes:” A curve in the time space continuum. “Worm holes”. “Black holes” in the fabric of that continuum–leading to–what? And to where? Another dimension? Perhaps. “Warp speed” in the fertile minds of sci-fi writers.

Yet, with all of our research and scientific assets, we’re mere insects in comparison with the vastness of the universe.

One wonders–I do–if the critters of Hideaway Pond have the perception and curiosity to look up at the night sky that shines and spins overhead. And wonder too. I’d like to think that they do. After all, they’re part of all of this. The same wild abandonment of rules that reins in all natural things.

Our ancestors, without our limited knowledge of the universe, feared many of its wonders. They invented and worshipped gods to fill that void. Space, time, the moon, ,stars and the rest of the cosmos were part of that void. And its mystery.

Winter solstice has also been known to celebrate Earth’s regeneration or rebirth. The Scandinavian Goddess, Beiwe, is associated with health and fertility. It was believed that she travelled through the night sky in a structure made of reindeer bones with her daughter, Beiwe-Neia, to bring back the greenery on which the reindeer fed. For this reason she was worshipped during this time of year.

Winter solstice rituals have long been practiced by cultures around the world. Traditionally, it’s been a time to celebrate the harvest, the return of the Sun, and the dichotomies of life and death.

In Italian folklore, La Befana is a goddess who rides around the world on her broom during the solstice, leaving candies and gifts to well-behaved children. Placing a rag doll in her likeness by the front door or window entices her into the home.

Alectrona was the greek goddess of the sun. It is thought that she might have also been the goddess of morning or ‘waking from slumber’. She will now begin to grace us each day with increasingly more of her warm presence . Until summer solstice when she yields once again to growing darkness of Beiwe the Goddess of Winter.

“The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.”  
Omar Khayyam