Is it odd I don’t feel especially joyous about the sun’s return? That I don’t particularly look forward to the days getting longer and lighter? Winter, my favourite season of all, is only just upon us, but from tomorrow, the sun begins its march back north. Many of my friends are ecstatic about the promise of brighter days, but I feel unsettled by the prospect. I’m never quite ready to let go of the dark.
I feel a certain peace during the darkest days that I don’t experience any other time of the year, and my spirit, which started waking up in Autumn, is finally fully alive. I’m more creative and productive and better connected with those around me. I’m also more present with everything and everyone in my life. My Icelandic partner, on the other hand, feels his spirit ‘gets extinguished’ by the dark.
However, in recent years, I’ve made lame excuses not to do things that I knew would satisfy my spirit: make pomanders (oranges studded with cloves), craft wax paper stars, string up an abundance of fairy lights, bake and bake and bake. This year, I’ve studded several oranges, welcomed a tree into my house and spent the best part of an afternoon beautifying it with an assortment of typisk Skandinavisk decorations from IKEA. I’ve decked my mantel with boughs of holly and evergreen, my favourite winter art is displayed, and candles and fairy lights are glowing up my home.
I haven’t listened to much music this year, but when I have had something playing, it’s mostly been ADHD focus music or Lankum. This year has been a monumental mind fuck, and I often haven’t had the mental capacity to be able to listen to music and relish it. However, as I’ve been decorating and gently nudging myself into a festive mindset, I’ve had Yuletide music quietly on in the background, and it’s been so damn restorative.
I’ve been easier on myself in this late part of the year. I’ve been giving myself permission to rest after what’s been a traumatic year. On this solstice, though, I’m out of sorts. I miss my partner. The central heating in my house has dried out my eyeballs. I was supposed to attend an online poetry workshop this evening, but anxiety reared its bullish head, so I didn’t sign in for it. All in all, it’s been an uncomfortable and stormy shortest day of the year.
The storm that’s been battering England shares it’s name with my daughter’s Swedish Grandmother. I’ve never heard the name Pia used in the UK, so I wasn’t surprised when I learned the name was given by the Danish Met Office. On the subject of Sweden, they had almost two hours less daylight than in the UK. In Iceland, they had just over four hours. I was going to decorate the little tree in my yard, but no baubles or lights wouldn’t have outlasted Storm Pia. I don’t know if the decorations would disturb the songbirds who shelter there, so perhaps I shouldn’t decorate it at all.
It was disturbingly warm when I went out earlier. I wore only one layer under my coat and hardly even needed that. In town, I stopped short when I saw a technicoloured ‘glitch’ in the sky. Back home, social media told me what I’d seen were Nacreous clouds, which, though otherworldly (they were once thought to be a bridge connecting Earth to divine realms), are hugely destructive and contribute to the depletion of the ozone layer. *Mind quietly blows.*
*These photos were taken in Teesside in the North East of England by my friend Ian.
I intended to write and share a Solstice poem with you, but didn’t finish it. So, instead, I’ll share Susan Cooper’s gorgeous poem The Shortest Day. Also, there’s some music I’ve been decorating and writing to and I promise it won’t infuriate you to the point of lunacy. And with that, blessed Yule to you and yours.
The Shortest Day - Susan Cooper
And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year’s sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, reveling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us—listen!
All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And now so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome, Yule!
A Wyrd Of Her Own 