sleepymaggie: (Default)
I held the sun in my hands.

Last Yule, we held our annual overnight, where we celebrated the height of the darkness and the coming of the light. We took water, flour, and salt and created tiny beasts and symbols and plants. These we crowded on our kitchen table all around an origami crib. Nestled in this crib was the even tinier sun, a small ball of salt dough, colored yellow and red and orange. The sun was with us, a pinprick of light in the long dark.

Today I'm holding the sun in my hands again.

It's much bigger, but somehow lighter and less solid. This new sun is made of paper mache, born of flour and water and newspaper strips. It is covered in ripped squares of tissue paper in the colors red and orange and yellow. Soon I'll fill it with bright colored candies. It's a pinata, you see, meant to be carved open. It's the egg of the sun, the height of the light, filled with darkness. We will break it, like any other egg, and let out what is inside.

Today is the longest day. I can look back across the year to the longest night. I can remember the darkness, the need to sleep, the jokes, the songs. I can remember the bread and the dark sweet cookies. I can remember the cold and the snow and the wind. And I can see in my mind's eye the tiny ball of salt dough that for a little while was the sun-come-down-to-earth.

Today is the longest day. When Pat comes home from work, we'll head out, driving to meet our friends in grove. We'll stop at a rest stop by the Delaware and watch the sun melt below the horizon line. We'll be as far west as you can be and still be in Jersey. The sun will set, the egg will break, and the darkness will come again.
sleepymaggie: (Default)
So its 6:30 here. Sun's still down. I note that on the east coast its 8:30 and the sun has already begun to climb back into the sky. Got a good bit of stuff done tonight -- laundry, house cleaning, present exchanging, collectable card gaming. We played the Age of Empires card game for most of the night -- that game takes an insane amount of time to play. Ever tried Axis & Allies? Its similar to that -- and it has similarly complicated rules. The thing that's better about A&A is that they at least give you all the pieces you need to play. Age of Empires required us to pull out mountains of pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters.

Yeah, I'm rambling. Very tired. Very, very tired. Have pics to post -- of unwrapping and cookie baking. Ha, I almost forgot, we made three kinds of cookies and then packaged them up for assorted family and friends. Turned out really nice for the most part.

Wow, I wish it was 8am. Every year doing the Yule overnight is a very hard thing for me -- I just really need regular large doses of sleep. But at the same time, the fact that I can do it makes me kinda proud. Once a year I survive the longest night.

Yule

Dec. 21st, 2005 09:48 am
sleepymaggie: (Default)
So tonight's the Big Night. Its one of the few nights of the year that I'm willing (if not able) to stay up for the whole thing. Watch the sun go down, watch the sun come up. I really love all the different holidays, but the solstices I think are particularly wonderful. There's this amazing physical change in the world -- longest night, longest day, extremes of cold, extremes of heat.

So. The plot for tonight.

* Bake cookies.
* Open presents.
* Rituals (I like having a beginning, middle, and end, however small they may be)
* Laundry (nothing like running through the cold to the laundry room to wake you up)
* Probably livejournal updates too

Still need to go to the store and get the candle (one of those long lasting ones -- we unfortunately don't have a fireplace anymore), snacks, cookie-makings, and plane food (since we're getting on the plane tomorrow, and if I don't have snacks I freak out even more).

I really wanted to stay up late last night and then sleep in today. Doesn't seem to be working. I woke up at nine, and even though I'm really tired from being up, I can't sleep. Ah, well.
sleepymaggie: (Default)
Ok here's another thing off the natrel list that I thought was interesting. Its from Margot Adler. They were having a conversation about pagan prison ministries -- so she responds with thoughts about her book (Drawing Down the Moon) and prisoners.

Read more... )

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