Monday, December 21, 2009

Happy Solstice!!

Today is the winter solstice for the northern hemisphere.

We have 9 hours of daylight between sunrise and sunset where I live today.

By Jan. 21, we'll have another 45 minutes of daylight and by the summer solstice, a whopping hours 16 and 1/2 hours of sunlight.

Since I'm a little bit solar-powered, I look forward to more daylight!

(And I apologize to everyone north of me for ever thinking our days are short. 9 hours of daylight sounds pretty long to me.)



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 winder trees;
They hung their homes with evergreens;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
to keep the year alive.
And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake
they shouted, revelling,
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
echoing behind us- Listen!
All the long echos sing the same delight
this shortest day
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks
and hope for peace
And so do we, here, now...
Welcome Yule!

- Susan Cooper (Excerpt from "The Shortest Day")

11 comments:

Meg said...

Already? That means our days are going to be shorter now! Whoa!!

Sara said...

And a Happy Solstice to you!

I, like you, need that solar power - so, I will be looking forward to more daylight. In between time - I will be using my daylight light bulbs...(yes, they do make a difference!!!)

Anonymous said...

I too am definitely looking forward to more daylight and less darkness - I count down the days to Solstice each year! A happy, happy day!!

Sharon said...

They're all short, dark and cold. I can't tell 'em apart - Bah humbug.

Desirée said...

The snow makes a huge difference. And the sun of course. It's the cloudy days that are the darkest.

ladyoftheloom said...

Where do the days go? It was just spring!

Evening is the most challenging at this time of year. Getting dark so early makes everything more difficult. Maybe I should get some of those daylight bulbs that Sara mentioned.

Lovely scarves!!

OzWeaver said...

Thank you for the lovely image and the poem! You've made the start of my day so upbeat!

charlotte said...

What a lovely poem! When counting the whole year, I think everybody might get about the same amount of light, some places the light is just so unevenly spread throughout the year.

bspinner said...

Happy Solsitce to you!

Amazing how fast that comes around.

Synnøve. said...

Hello my friend.
Im looking in to you this evening just to say Happy christmas to you.
Hope you have got snow. We have snow and verry cold. Minus 23 degres cold. Its winter i Norway.

I wish you a merry christmas know.
Christmashugs from me.
Synnöve.

R. Delight said...

Happy Solstice to you and yours too. We go into the light! Susan Cooper is one of my favorite authors and the Solstice is our main winter holiday celebration. Thanks for the lovely post. -Renee