Winter Solstice

It’s a fitting day to be the shortest of the year in terms of daylight hours. Wind is whipping around corners; raindrops are plucking on the window; the temperature has edged up a few degrees; and there all shades of gray paint the sky. A big storm is brewing.

In celestial terms, for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, our winter solstice is when the sun appears to reach the farthest south in its travels back and forth across our equator. The tilt of the earth on its axis—a line running between the North and South Poles—is the cause. Here’s how it works as our earth spins around once a day on its axis and plods along on its year-long orbit completely around the sun.

Today, December 21, the North Pole is tilted away from the sun; in six months, next June 21, it will be tilted toward the sun and we will have our longest day, our summer solstice. In between these dates, our hours of daylight increase a little each day. To me, this solstice signals a new beginning, a fresh start. A movement away from my 3-year nadir and upward toward a robust, productive zenith.

A friend gave me this quote the other day: “Happiness can be found in the darkest of times, but we need to turn on the lights.” Not bad…and quite apropos. I am looking for the switch.