Tis the Time

I first wrote this in 2014 and posted it on both group blogs I belonged to then. I think they are still the right words. I have only added some personal photos at the end. Wishing lots of light as the nights grow longer and happy  holiday season to all.

Triss

 

‘Tis the Time

It’s not chance that holidays this time of year are celebrated with lights as the days get shorter and the sun seems to be shrinking. We went to Newgrange in Ireland a few years ago, one of the many ancient places where people who had only primitive tools and no written language were nevertheless able to build a place where the sun on winter solstice comes right through a tiny window. 

People join a lottery to be one of the very few allowed to sleep there that night and see the sun that morning. Sometimes the nature gods just don’t cooperate.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/newgrange-magic-felt-even-as-sun-fails-to-light-up-chamber-1.2045500

There has been an assumption that the lights are a form of sympathetic magic, that our long-ago ancestors feared the sun was going away for good and the lights would bring it back. Maybe not. Someone wrote recently that people who were capable of conceiving, and accomplishing, a project as large as Newgrange (or Stonehenge, or Chichen Itza) and siting it so perfectly on the right axis, were surely smart enough to remember, year to year, that the sun does come back. 

However, we don’t have to be a modern Druid, or even believe in any religion at all, to enjoy the candles or to hope for light instead of darkness tomorrow. And for the whole year. This year has been a dark one in many ways for our world. May next one be better.

Wishing everyone the joys of the season, a bright new year and the light of many candles.