Today (Saturday) is the winter solstice. This annual event tends to be overshadowed by the Christmas and New Year's holidays, and that's understandable. But the solstice is worth remarking on, especially in the latitudes where I sit as I write this; this morning here in the Susitna Valley, the sun will rise (it hasn't yet as of this writing) at 10:18 AM and will set at 3:34 PM, for 5 hours and 16 minutes of daylight. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but the sun – all year, actually – goes down at a steep angle, meaning the sky is still lit up for quite a while before sunrise and after sunset. But that still makes for some long, dark nights, and this night will be the longest.
Tomorrow, though - tomorrow we start back towards the sun. That wheel never stops turning.
While we tend to think about the winter solstice as a day-long event, the term actually refers to a precise moment at which one half of the Earth — either the top or the bottom — is tilted the furthest away from the sun, resulting in the fewest hours of sunlight of the year for that half of the hemisphere.
Though the winter solstice marks the shortest day of each year, it also signals an increase in the amount of sunlight each day for the next six months.
The darkness can have an effect on people, and not just here; in all of the northern latitudes, the long hours of night can be unsettling.
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As it happens, there are a lot of neat traditions around this event. That's understandable, especially in older traditions from societies in places like Britain, where the winters are cold and dreary, and the beginning of the move back towards warm weather is worth marking. Historic, mysterious observatories were built, back in the mists of time, to serve as calenders to let the people know when the sun would be coming back. One such is the famous Stonehenge.
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So what are some ways people have traditionally celebrated the winter solstice? Well, there is the northern European holiday season of Yule. That word has been absorbed, of course, into Christmas, and since the two holidays are only a few days apart, it's easy to see how they were combined. But the holiday of Yule appears to have started with the Vikings, who celebrated by decorating their homes with mistletoe, building fires, and singing. Sound familiar?
In Japan, there is the holiday of Toji. This holiday is celebrated, traditionally, by taking hot baths in which the citrus fruit yuzu is added. Incidentally, despite Japan being a predominantly Shinto and Buddhist society, Christmas is very popular there as well; the town of Kobe is famous for its Christmas lights, and I can tell you from experience that they are worth seeing.
And, of course, the ancient Romans had their Saturnalia, which reportedly was celebrated with feasting and wine, and plenty of it; that seems to be the default setting, of course, for Roman celebrations, a tradition which seems to have carried over to the traditional American New Year's Eve celebrations (at least, the booze part of it).
There's still a lot of winter ahead, of course. For most of the United States, the coldest days are yet to come; January is the coldest month in most places, and here in the Great Land, that certainly applies. But the days will now gradually grow longer. My mother was fond of saying that "fall moves south and spring comes north at the pace of a man walking," and I reckon she was right in that assessment; depending on where you are, of course, makes a big difference as to when that man arrives in your neighborhood.
But as of Saturday, we can relax a little, knowing that this man has reached the southernmost point in his journey, and has now reversed course and is heading back, bringing sunshine, birdsong, wildflowers, and warm days with him.
So enjoy this shortest of days, knowing that tomorrow, we start our journey into summer.
This seems appropriate.
