Winter Solstice 2012

It's the longest night of the year, the night of the winter solstice.  Today was a pretty nice day, with the high temps in the upper 60s and lots of sunshine.  In honor of the solstice I hiked up Squaw Peak this afternoon in my shorts and a tee-shirt, and I was keenly aware that I live in a a singularly fortunate part of the country.  Most of the rest of the country was grappling with a strong winter storm wreaking havoc at airports in the midwest, and moving eastward just in time to screw up the most heavily-traveled weekend of the year.  Me, I was hanging laundry in my backyard and enjoying the view from on top of a mountain.

This evening I'm sitting on my couch at home, all snuggly and warm, a houseful of happy, healthy bunnies, watching my fabulous new television.  I have it very good, and my life is very comfortable and full of riches and blessings.  The winter solstice lends it self to such self-reflection and contemplation.  I think about how many people, in various cultures around the world, over the millenia since mankind first started noticing things like solstices and equinoxes, have taken note of this particular day of the year.

The winter solstice occurs in the dead of winter, when the world seemed the most lifeless, although you would never know it where I live.  In European cultures everything was usually covered with a thick blanket of snow and locked in the icy vise-grip of winter.  The fields were barren and desolate, and the trees devoid of any leaves, looking as if they were dead.  But people also understood that this is the day when light and life would begin to return to the world, for buried deep in the dead of winter are the seeds of spring, and soon enough the world will be blooming and fertile again.

Yes, the days will start to get a little bit longer from now until next June, and six months from now I will be griping and moaning about the horrible, ghastly heat which threatens to kill us all.  But right now, I am very happy to contemplate the cycle of the seasons, and enjoy the chilly weather outside.  As I get older I become more sensitive to the passage of time, and the cold realization that I will not alive on this planet forever.  We only get a limited time to live here, and I realize more and more each day that all of us have a responsibility to live a good a life as possible.  I want to live my life kindly and intelligently, to leave the world in a better shape than when I entered it - a life marked by kindness, empathy, defending the rights of animals in a world where they are so often abused and devalued, and wisely using the resouces this planet provides to us.

That is what I'm thinking about on this night, the longest night of the year.  When my time is over, I want to feel like I have accomplished something, and I have made a little bit of difference in the lives of the people and animals who have graced my life with their presence.

God Rest Ye Merry Hucksters

As the fair month of November slips quietly away, I look with a bit of dread on the rapidly-approaching holiday season.  I know there will be lots of parties and dinners and gatherings to attend, and it will be very nice to spend time with all the wonderful people in my life, but a little bit of me is already starting to cringe at the orgy of greed and consumerism which is already rushing towards us.

Yesterday there was a story on the local news about some pathetic idiot who is camped out in front of a Best Buy store or something here, in anticipation of being the first one in the store when Black Friday hits.  That would be four days later.  Apparently this sad schmuck has nothing better to do than waste four days of his life on the opportunity to drop a bunch of money on some electronic gifts for his niece and nephew, which will probably be forgotten in a month or two.  I'm not sure which is worse, this fool squatting on the doorstep of corporate America or the local news idiots publicizing him like he's some kind of retail warrior or something.

This year it seems more apparent than ever that Thanksgiving is becoming an afterthought, a secondary holiday whose main purpose is to mark the beginning of the REAL holiday - the start of the Xmas shopping season.  This month I've heard more about Black Friday than about Thanksgiving itself, and that is really sad.  Thanksgiving is the biggest secular holiday and the one with the most meaning.  What could be more fitting and proper than to be thankful for all the good things in your life and to draw your friends and loved ones near to you and celebrate being together?  Sharing a good meal, a glass or two of wine, and good conversation is to me a gift that no store-purchased bauble could match.  And yet, people seem to be very willing to eschew the good things in life for the pursuit of the biggest bargain, or the lowest prices.

A lot of people will wage their assault on the local shopping mall with all the grim precision and painstaking detail of a major military operation.  It is so unseemly and undignified to be such money-grubbing, shopping-crazed automatons - robots pre-programmed by a lifetime of carefully-honed and targeted commercials to go out and shop on command.  The more money you spend, the more you love someone; that seems to be the take-away from all this.  In the single-minded pursuit of this end, so much of what makes life worthwhile seems to drop away and get left behind in the glitter and the dust.

So this year, I'm going to do what I have been doing for the past 5 or 6 years - reject all the buy-or-die hysteria, push back on the annoying, intrusive and hyperactive sales pitches, and instead concentrate on the real reason we celebrate the season - the friendship of people we love and with whom we share more than just a parking space in a shopping center lot, the coming winter solstice, and soon afterward a new year and a new springtime, and another year full of promise and opportunity, sadness and joy, and more wonderful people and rabbits gracing my life and touching my heart.