SOLSTICE

 

 

The grim news has come to my attention

that something in the world has come unfixed --

 

owls no longer haunt the fir-lined alley appearing out of the dreamtime as we pass,

 

indeed, whole souls are missing, as if being

has itself gone dim -- like an old man's seeing.

 

 

 

 

 

A vital light is missing from this world, by which I mean that ephemeral gold that spins the seen and unseen worlds together.

 

In my life

I don't expect to see a springtime swelling

of the shrivelled nut so many human spirits

have become.

 

 

 

 

 

What's to be done?

 

 

This is the winter solstice of an age, although the season's worst is yet to come. What's delicate and true has come undone:

 

is the only fitting answer

a pure and focused rage?

 

Today I wove a wreath of bone and fir and filbert withes; twined in sacred holly, incense cedar from an ancient tree. I wove, affixed a star, and spoke a spell:

"Let this circle stand as the gate of winter

sure passage to the days of lengthening light."

 

 

 

 

And then I whispered names in the fragrant bough

Lacing love like a scarlet ribbon through the fronds.

 

Long I wove and dreamed back friends and kin, each great soul calling back the sun.

 

I thought at last, "My life here is not done."

And some bright fire rekindled from within . . .

 

 

"Solstice Wreath" by Sandra Michaelson Brown

 

 

Spring	Solstice 2001	Winter
Summer	Peace of Wild Things	Autumn
We Are	HOME	Out of Darkness

 

Photographs (except owl and green branches) by Randy Wang

 

Music: Bring a Torch

Background by Heikki Luhtala

 

Created for the Solstice of December 2002