https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/basics/chapter2-2/
We celebrate how life becomes
dark and short and difficult
(science explains, there are charts
and lectures and explanations
of the North Pole etc.) but
what really happens is that dark
(real and imagined - the impossibly
long lines at the Covid testing centers,
and then there is Covid itself)
inevitably becomes light and we know
even now that darkness
is followed by sun.
Love this
My mother was born on a winter solstice, Dec. 21, 1917. She died on my father's 36th birthday, Jan. 22, 1953. I was 4 and 1/2. My sister and I, both now in our 70's, share memories of our mother every Dec. 21, her birthday. My older sister will remind me, "shortest day of the year, short life." But we light yertzeit candles on the winter solstice, her date of birth, rather than on the anniversary of her death.