Today, the 21st of December is Winter Solstice. Darkness will be at maximum duration. In the Northern Hemisphere the earth’s pole is tilted at greatest distance from the sun.

But that is not all… Spring is coming! I wish that I knew a metaphor of greater exuberance, of unalloyed childlike anticipation to celebrate the advent of Spring. I mean the emergence of life from the ground, the daylight grows, the at-rest organisms awaken to break the thawing ground, tiny green buds attend to the sun’s light.

All of this is cyclic, felt, acknowledged by you and I. The same was appropriated by our ancestors, and acknowledged with silent acceptance, or with monuments and communal celebrations such as at Stonehenge England. Who would not feel a sober awe to recognize that the solstice, involving the axis of rotation of the earth, is in relation to the entire cosmos?

The Winter Solstice is the symbolic death and rebirth of the Sun.

Today I remembered several of my generation who passed on ahead of me. Pat Hawthorne was a fellow high school student. Pat died, while in company with friends, the result of an automobile collision. Pat was diabetic and bled out, as the story went. He was sixteen or seventeen. I could have been in that vehicle, in his stead. I remember him as a kind soul.

Wayne Wilson worked for my company for many years. I remember the pleasant, agreeable conversations with Wayne at company picnics. Wayne had a neurological condition which he attempted to self-treat by nutritional supplements, dietary adjustments. Wayne was single, and had no relatives that I know of. I lost track of Wayne a number of years ago.

And then there is Al. Al Lykins died a few months ago and I miss him. He was two years older than I. Al was a really smart guy, curious, self-educated, well read in European literature, a collector of fine art. By spiritual orientation he was Buddhist, as well as a life long motorcycle adventurer. Al raced bikes at Road America. He was an adept story teller. The love of his life was Karen, whom he lost to cancer some 20 years ago. Al never recovered the loss of Karen and spoke of her often. I miss Al.

At dusk I plan to kindle a fire to remember these and others who left this life and are in the earth ahead of me. It seems right to do on winter solstice.

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What about a tune to hold onto? This one is fine: The Sultans of Swing by Dire Straits.