Joys of the Dark Time

The past couple of months I have been pursuing an interesting personal project, creating a calendar for 2016, just for use in the household. I found one of those printing companies which lets you upload whatever photos you like, both for the months and for individual days. I'm sure most people use them for family birthdays and anniversaries, but I used mine for both the eight major festivals, and for various obscure things which I either observe, or would like to be reminded of, like Plough Monday and Tynwald Day. I also marked the full moons with nice moon pictures and the new moons with the Faerie Faith Beth-Luis-Nion system of months. I'm perfectly aware that these have no real provenance in tradition, and are "just" a construction, but I felt like looking at them this year. Systems like this often have much to teach. Oh, yes, and I also marked the start of each traditional astrological sun sign, a system which has longstanding meaning for me. So, I think it will be quite a pretty calendar, and hopefully give me much to think about. I keep checking the post!

I have said before how much comfort I find in winter, as opposed to summer, when I suffer with the heat and brightness and insects. As I continue my spiraling path through the seasons yet again, I seem to have reached an even deeper appreciation of winter, and that quarter which runs from Samhuinn to Imbolc, and maybe a little over at the edges.

Making the calendar really brought home to me how much I love the winter traditions, from souling plays  and bonfire night, through Hogmanay and the wassailing of Twelfth Night and finally Plough Monday. All through the season, I feel the growing sense of the Cailleach, until she is defeated at Imbolc. I have never feared nor hated Her. We became friends long ago. It's nice to feel the contrast between being out in the cold and coming into the warmth, to have time to feast and drink with friends, and mumming and guising are such magical things.

Yet I now live on an empty Colorado plain, with few friends at hand and even less sense of community, so what does this mean for me? I still enjoy the long nights and cooler weather immensely. The special winter light has always been magical for me. These past few weeks I have seen so many birds, huge flocks of snow geese going over morning and evening, moving between some feeding ground and water. We are also being visited my many crows, something we don't see too often. They remind me so much of Scotland. They are shy and restless, though.

Most of all I enjoy the long nights and the quiet. Long lies in the morning. It's similar to the feeling I get at the time of the new moon. Silent, spacious and peaceful. I've been heartened to read two moving pieces of writing recently which echo my feelings about this time, and do so very poetically.

In a 2009 piece for the Guardian called "Why I Adore the Night", Jeanette Winterson wrote: "I have noticed that when all the lights are on, people tend to talk about what they are doing – their outer lives. Sitting round in candlelight or firelight, people start to talk about how they are feeling – their inner lives. They speak subjectively, they argue less, there are longer pauses." and "Making love in the afternoon is completely different in summer and winter. To begin as the afternoon light is fading, to wake up, warm and heavy, when it is completely dark, to kiss and stroke the shared invisible body, to leave the person you love half asleep while you go and open wine … then the moment of standing barefoot in the kitchen, just a candle and two glasses to take back to bed, and a feeling of content like no other." These are things I enthusiastically agree with.

Then the other day, in a blog post titled "Let Me Lie in the Cave of My Soul", Philip Carr-Gomm quoted from a poem by Joyce Rupp:
"Too much light has pulled me away from the chamber of gestation."
and
"Let me seek solace in the empty places of winter’s passage,

Those vast dark nights, that never fail to shelter me."

Enjoy the dark time while it's here. The wheel will turn before you know it.