Winter Solstice 2021

Tuesday, December 21, 2021

_{(December’s fullest “Cold Moon” is Waning Gibbous; January’s fullest “Wolf Moon” will rise on the 17th.)}

Here today on the West Coast, the 2021 Winter Solstice will occur about 8:00 a.m. (PST). That’s when the sun will be taking its lowest and shortest path through the sky. And when we will see our shortest period of daylight. Afterwards, daylight will start increasing, daily, by seconds. In early January, we actually will see daylight increasing. It’ll add about a minute a day, mostly apparent in the evenings.

Annually, I celebrate days of Winter Solstice. A turning point, making me barely able to await a January’s beginning. Once the extending light becomes apparent, and despite whatever outside weather may exist, my heart feels warmer, my energy expands.

Newly expanding light represents enlightenment and hope. In my life, it energizes the caring of property and livestock. In everybody’s life, it encourages rethinking the whole world, in general.

About my deeply-held appreciation of Winter Solstice. I suppose it’s tantamount to my fascination with newly arising moons, as they’re shedding first-lights on otherwise blank-dark horizons. Those first lights are like a dawning of consciousness, it’s as if a known world is beginning anew.

“New light”, what does that represent to us all? How about, in our childhoods? During our twenties and thirties? And afterwards, in long periods over which our lives and brains evolved? What does it represent today, in regard to who we may be, wherever we may be?

In my past life, as a city girl Winter Solstice never meant much. Only after I self-re-identified as a country girl did solar system and natural lighting became big deals. Just a few seasons of trudging through darkness, and in rain or snow, to take care of large animals, will make an individual start to embrace the solar system, and ‘heart’ its rhythms.

Today, I’m aiming to publish before 8 a.m. For that’s when I intend to be outside, standing tall and wide-armed, to welcome this Solstice.

Dear Friends: As January’s “Wolf Moon” beckons, just imagine the possibilities. Diana