WHAT WAS HE SMOKING

This is an important day; of course every day is important. As today ticks away, tomorrow slides in without missing a beat and it's still today. But December 21 is likely the oldest observed holiday, ever. I remember it in my blog every year. True, the numbers of people who observe it as a special day are few but remember, people seldom move against the current. Winter Solstice: that day in Earth’s annual trek around ‘El Sol’ when daylight is short and darkness would have its way. You know the science. 

The longest night might not seem so special but it is in fact, the original resurrection story. God, whatever that means, the undeniable mystery, had turned its back on mankind but on this day it turned back around. Beginning the next day, shadows would begin to shorten, longer days, the promise of spring. Everybody knew what that meant. Abundant life would flourish again, there was reason to hope. Cold, dark winter was a time to hunker down and you needed something to help you through. If that ain’t the seed for religion, I don’t know how you get there. So those old pagans marked the shortest day as a new beginning, bolstered to face the harsh, barren season at hand. 

The more I learn about primitive people the better I like them. Solstice is just one way to make that connection. The earth, its rocks, air and water; it’s pretty much the same as it was a million years ago. Same sun. The elements; H, C, O, N, P, Fe, K, they get recycled through people, generation to generation. All of us are made of the same molecules that moved through our ancestors (the very same ones.) Old world Asian and African religions were centered on the elders, ancient ones, on the blood line. Those spirits are links between our own flesh and those who came before, they are key to the journey ahead.

Pagan peoples conceded to the forces of nature. Mother Earth, Father Sky; if you want to know the Creator’s will then pay particular attention to how Creation works. I like both models better than hypocritical, narcissistic constructs that have trickled down from Abraham. I’d like to know what he was smoking. 

The weather is warming. Come dark; 4:59 officially, I will use scrap wood to make a fire in the Chiminea on my patio. I’ll dress appropriately and take my laptop outside, sing along with Leonard Cohen and Billie Holiday, maybe some Dylan. I may even dance around in the dark, nobody will notice. Between my blood line and Mother Earth, I’ll send out a song that is soft but it’s clear. Can’t leave out James Taylor’s, Baby James. The great Solstice line there goes; “There’s a song that they sing when they take to the highway; a song that they sing when they take to the sea; a song that they sing of their home in the sky; maybe you can believe it if it helps you to sleep. The singing works just fine for me.”