Today is the Winter Solstice. It’s hard to believe that this time last year Mark and I were walking around Las Vegas. The Solstice Spiral Walks that I helped to facilitate with C.N. aren’t happening at the local UU Church any more, so I won’t be drawing chalk spirals as a guide for fir boughs and candles or playing a tone drum in the pouring rain while congregants walk a spiral and contemplate the returning light. On one hand, it’s one less thing to do; on the other hand, I miss holding contemplative ritual space, even if the only folks I really knew at UUCE were C.N., G.M., S.H., and some other acquaintances.
A couple of days ago, I attended a Starhawk-Wiccan Solstice ritual (and potluck) at a pagan friend’s house; they conduct rituals for the greater Eugene pagan community. The ritual reminded me a little of the ritual Sunday services at UUCE: there was a lot of singing and swaying in place. As we stood in a loose circle and sang songs about the Children of the Goddess, the joke “Why can’t Unitarians sing? / Because they’re too busy scanning ahead to see if they agree with the words” came to mind. During a moment of ritual contemplation, I was thankful to be married to Mark. I did not sing “Nobody can hold back the dark,” during a closing chorus, but it was a near thing.
I was going to say that it looks too rainy and grey this Solstice morning to focus the sun’s light onto a candle, but as I looked up from the computer screen, wan sunlight shone onto the kitchen nook. Perhaps, I thought, there will be a break in the clouds later for strong enough sunlight to shine through. —And as I watched, the sunlight strengthened.
Recognizing that there’s no time like the present when it comes to ritual (or astronomy) and the Oregon sky, I leapt up from the keyboard and away from the writers’ Zoom session, scooped up my Anubis matches, the giant magnifying lens, and a beeswax pillar candle in a copper cauldron. (Why, yes; I do have ritual tools readily handy at my house, doesn’t everyone?)
I hurried outside to the deck. There was honest-to-goodness blue sky above. The sun shone above a thick bank of grey clouds and grazed the roofline of our southern neighbors’ house. It’s winter solstice, and shadow of their house stretches across the yard and brushes up against our foundation. The wind gusted.
“Behind you.” Mark was entering and exiting the house to do some yard work.
The deck was relatively dry for a damp, Oregon winter day. I set up the candle on one of the four round outdoor end-tables I originally bought to use for altars and attempted to focus the sunlight onto the match held against the wick. A spotlight circle of sunlight shone on the outside of the candle; the wick was deep in a thin shell of beeswax from previous candle burnings. I broke off most of the wax, turned the candle, and tried to shine focused Solstice sunlight again.
“Behind you,” Mark said.
I stood over the candle looking down on it; a thin wisp of smoke rose from the wick. Then my hair fell forward in a curtain, which made it hard to see what I was doing and risked making Mark’s dire predictions about solstice fire, candles, and really any sort of combustion, come true. I riffled my pockets for a nonexistent hair tie, all the time watching the sun, the clouds, and the shadow of our neighbor’s house.
I pulled my hair behind me, crouched down, and refocused the sunlight. The wind gusted again. The magnifying lens projected an upside-down tree onto the white smoke of the smoldering wick; I moved the patio furniture altar out of the shadow of tree branches.
Mark, who was picking up dog poop from the yard, asked, “The sun’s pretty low. Have you ever done this this early before?”
“No,” I said, watching the cone of sunlight waver as I tried to place its focal point onto the wick. This was technically a ritual, and I hadn’t grounded, invoked a proper circle, or invited the four directions. I hadn’t reflected on the hinge of the year, or the returning light, or numinous and immanent Earth processes. I hadn’t taken a moment to dedicate or rededicate my life to anything in particular.
I quietly sang, “Bring from the center of the sun…” and flame sprang from the match and wick. The wind guttered the candle; I picked it up, held it close, went inside, and brought the candle to the desk—in the writers’ Zoom session, I saw myself, long haired, in red plaid, holding a copper cauldron with a flaming candle in my hands.
I placed the candle next to my keyboard and mouse. Happy Solstice, I thought, and returned to the writers’ session. The sun dimmed as the grey returned, but I had Solstice Fire on my desk.