The earth moves, as it should and as it has for millennia before mammals emerged on the scene.  Sunrises and sunsets change as days become shorter and longer and each season emerges.  Yesterday was the winter solstice, offering the shortest day of the year, 9 hours and 44 minutes. Sunset tomorrow will be 2 seconds later.  Slowly, steadily, and surely, life moves from one phase to another as the days lengthen.   When did humans realize that the length of daylight also produced warmer or colder temperatures, and that this part of nature happened periodically in a year? Survival dictated that happened fairly quickly.  I can only imagine how early humans reacted to things like eclipses, storms, and daylight changes, and the moon going through phases.  We do know that they celebrated emerging from the dark of winter to the lightness of spring because they constructed stone circles, such as at Stonehenge, and petroglyphs at Chaco Canyon here in New Mexico.  'Grianstad an Gheimhridh' in Irish Gaelic, or roughly "Hault of the sun of the winter" is a modern celebration of winter solstice.  Hanukkah extended from the 14th of December until today at nightfall.  It is also called the Festival of Lights.  During the Christmas season around the world, lights play a major role.  

The lily is often thought of as an Easter or memorial flower, but it is also the symbol of purity, innocence, and rebirth.  Appropriate for a time when the darkness is waining, minute by minute, and more light falls on the earth.  
         

Flowers - lily 2 12/25 Flowers - lily 1 12/25 Flowers - lily 3 12/25

As the sun sets on winter solstice, 2025, the sun is lower and the shadows longer.

Flowers - lily 4 12/25
 

Our friend and former neighbor, Dave, was born on the Solstice a tidy number of years ago.  I don't know how he felt about that while growing up having a birthday so close to Christmas, but it seems like a rich date on which to be born.

Thanks for Catherine, Tim, Ingrid, Steve, Heather H., and Paule M. for your comments on last week's blog.  However you are celebrating this week, I hope much joy and hope fills your hearts.

until next Monday,

DB

    a passion for the image©