The mirrorland of solstice
Two sides of the same glass--one side allowing all light in; the other keeping all light out. Both absolute.
We are in the doldrums of the year, which is why we turn up the lights, break out the drinks, cook and bake, and tell stories of nostalgia for a past that may or may not have existed.
We need the company of night thoughts, of cold thoughts, and yet it is so hard to abide their totality. Solstice invites the totality in—to acknowledge the side of the glass that shares nothing, while the same material viewed from the opposite side gapes with light. Both occlude in their own fashion.
So we celebrate, try to find some sense of light in the darkness, the dark in the lightness. One side hope, one side chaos. Somehow we hope to see through the mirror a hint of what is to come, and to reflect as accurately as we can on what has passed.
Living in the north, I’ve thought a lot about the darkness and lightness of high latitude solstices. The swing from nearly full darkness to nearly full lightness. How to respond to the extremes of sustained noons and nevernights (as a favorite poet-mentor once wrote) that come with each solstice. What pulses beneath that we miss in the light of spotlit nights, of the dark dusk of twilight days.
I wrote a poem about these extremes several years ago and share it below—as we try to understand another year of distance, of anxious travel, or of staying home. Of what celebration means and offers, in a second year of life in a pandemic, to soon greet a new year where it will still be living and dying amongst us.
Emily Dickinson wrote in a letter to her cousin that “November is the Norway of the year.” Perhaps these pandemic years are the December of this decade, century—the Svalbard of 2021. And in writing that out, I’m surprised how that statement elicits hope—because a solstice is an extreme that swings again. From one side to the other, from chaos to hope, from hope back to chaos.
And that is the predictive quality—and the steady reassurance—of solstices. That as hard as it is to live without light or without darkness, the condition is ultimately fleeting, in spite of the seep of darkness that feels like it’s beginning to take root, or the spotlit exposure of midnight sun that leaves no cover. The arrival of the solstice is a solace—the two words share the root sōl, meaning sun in Latin. Although I can’t find that the two are related directly, there still feels like a hint of knowing in it—that the warmth of the sun can console, and the darkness of night can give comfort, space to reflect, to seek and give and find warmth elsewhere. Solstice/solace—the year’s comfort, consolation, a soothing reassurance that we will soon be headed in a different direction, that we will find a way back to balance.
Sending everyone light from this high latitude almost-solstice, this mirrorland of a place and year.
I love all of this, and the poem especially. Happy Solstice to you.
the poem is amazing, well written, fluid sending a white mood leading to the North which in turn mirrors the alter side of iced lands: light and sun coming even for this part of the planet!
I find simply catchy the line
across the north in the NOT NIGHT.....
Thanks Freya for writing and permitting me to read art in this moment I can't concentrate on writing..