Christmas and Winter Solstice

Winter Solstice December 22

Christmas choristers drown out the robins instructive chirp. He chip-chips away, patiently, with no doubt that on his own, he will eventually wear out the darkness, and return light to the world. He awaits my passing, and the careless tossing aside of some leaves that will reveal the light scurrying beings, whitened by the dark below.

Indoors, artificial boughs are weighed down with holly stripped from the fields and the wild. New clothes, and no tomorrow. Dutiful presents, and the acceptance of gifts you know have nothing to do with your dreams. What we do want, is to achieve a goal, once deemed to be lost. To see a loved one long departed. To live again in  a world where the imagination is the only reality that matters. The older the Christmas, the more populated it becomes with the spirits of Christmas past, and slowly, as we become one of these spirits, we become the memories of others. Chimeras, shadow beings, finger shadows.

Christmas is when time is told to stand still . . . rest a while. The earth holds its breath at the nadir of its days, before starting the upward climb to sun and renewal. Life stirs everywhere, after this day; in the earth beneath our feet, in the skies above our heads, in our souls of seasons, in this season of soul and spirit. There is a promise, a contract renewed. In winter, we learn of death and sleep, and so every year, we choose growth to replace hibernation, change over stasis, life over death.

Christmas December 25

Trees and baubles, glitter and light, symbols of magic . . . and a light to lead us on; a journey to follow a star whose course we can never hope to alter.

©Copyright Niall OConnor