A Nonreligious Holiday Ritual – The Atlantic

The low winter sun casts slanting light, a special color that is both happy and sad at the same time – very appropriate for this time of year. Almost every city dweller I know clings to the fleeting moments of enjoyable splendor during the last dark days of the calendar.

This year, the winter solstice will occur on Saturday, December 21st at 4:20 a.m. ET. Due to the tilt of the Earth’s axis, we humans in the northern hemisphere will be facing away from the sun. A day later we will slowly move towards it again. While the summer solstice is meant for celebration – short sleeves, sizzling barbecues,… Thought an icy cold – the winter solstice is a quieter, more contemplative time. Maybe you have no plans to celebrate the solstice other than staying inside and letting the short day pass by (understandable). But for anyone who feels like venturing outside, the solstice is a flawless time for a simple act notice.

In 1894, the poet Edith M. Thomas published an essay in The Atlantic titled “From the winter solstice to the spring equinox.” The opening sentence is particularly impressive. “My first view of the morning was through a gap in the frosted window pane,” Thomas writes. “I saw the morning star and a light from a neighbor, both of which cast a thousand sparks on the milk glass. I was reminded of salt flakes and shavings in a white cave that was suddenly illuminated by a torch.” Thomas keeps her senses focused on the present, thereby increasing her powers of observation: “As I looked into the distant woods, my attention went through attracted by the mysterious play of two wind-blown plumes of smoke rising from the chimneys of farmhouses.”

Commemorating the solstice is an ideal ritual for those of us who feel drawn to maintaining seasonal traditions, even if we are ambivalent about organized religion. In December 1930 an unnamed Atlantic One contributor wrote: “Our Christmas pudding and cake, like our colorful Christmas tree, holly wreaths and mistletoe, are part of the symbolism that connects us not only to our living fellow human beings, but to all people who celebrated the winter solstice with feasts.” and happiness.” The author affectionately describes himself as “pagans” because they only attend mass once a year – a midnight service on Christmas Eve – and do not belong to any established religion. Of course, nodding to the solstice can be a way to tap into your own spiritual side, even without a religious institution.

Almost 100 years later, in one Atlantic In “The Conversation,” two readers, Ruth Langstraat and Roxanne WhiteLight, shared their tradition of exchanging writing as gifts: “Several years ago, my wife and I felt we needed a better way to celebrate the winter season of change or to mark. We were so tired of the materialistic drive that seemed so important at the time. We now celebrate “turning point” during the 12 days from the solstice to the new year. Every year we decide on a theme and 12 elements of that theme… Then we each write a poem in the simplest form of a cinquain, a five-line stanza. And we read these poems to each other.”

Winter is the perfect time to find a cozy lamp and put pen to paper, but there’s no requirement that what you write has to be cheerful. In her 1967 poem “Early December in Croton-on-Hudson,” published in 1967, poet Louise Glück captures the raw northeastern essence of the season with just a few simple phrases — “spiny sun,” “bone-pale” — captured The Atlantic. In the poem, happiness describes the sight of fresh snow clinging “like fur to the river.” As my colleague Zoë Snaker recently reported, snow is now, tragically, an anomaly for millions of Americans this time of year: Our winters are getting warmer and wetter.

But they are still dark as ever. Given the grim reality of winter, perhaps it’s time to seriously consider my colleague Charlie Warzel’s argument that we should leave our Christmas trees up until March. In 2022, Charlie wrote of the January emptiness symbolized by his recently kicked-to-the-roadside tree: “When I stare at that hole, I feel like a light has gone out in the world.” He continued: “There is no reason to welcome the New Year in darkness. It’s time to adopt a new practice and keep our trees and lights going during the winter months. Normalize longer celebrations!”

Fighting the darkness with light is actually what the decision to recognize the solstice is all about. In addition to all the usual Christmas songs, I make sure to listen to “Snow Is Falling in Manhattan” by Purple Mountains from David Berman’s latest project. As my colleague Spencer Kornhaber wrote in one of two tributes to the songwriter following his death in 2019, “Berman sketched a winter evening in New York City as a beautiful apocalypse.” Such a powerful juxtaposition – beginning and end, up and down, happy and sad, light and dark – is part of the spirit of December 21st. Berman sings:

This article originally stated that the solstice was related to the Earth’s distance from the Sun; In fact, it is caused by the tilt of the planet’s axis.