Happy Solstice!

Once again, it’s the time of year when we make sacrifice to ensure the return of the sun, to genuflect to the powers in which we believe, and pray for the release of the sun from her prison of darkness.

Ah, it’s hard to get really Viking in the Valley of the Sun. Not for us Valley dwellers the long dark nights, the freezing cold, and the washed-out grayness which is all that remains of daylight.

And yet, here we are at the solstice, decorating our dwellings with lights–little sisters of the sun, to help her find her way back–and looking inward to make peace with another year come and gone, to hope for the return of the light to bring with it the fertility and prosperity which is its bounty.

No matter how much time we spend staring at the flickering of TV sets and monitors, how far we physically remove ourselves from the ardors of the fields and plains, how much we surround ourselves with electric light, the collective unconscious in the back of our heads will always look at the fading of the light and the barrenness of the fields and wonder if the bright warmth of the sun will return. And fear that it will not.

Happy Solstice, my friend.