The Dark is Rising...

...but only for a few more days. The celestial clock is about to chime. Thursday is our winter solstice, the longest night of the year. Afterward day length will slowly grow until June 20th and the summer solstice. I loved the series "The Dark is Rising" filled with Welsh mythology, but it is fiction. The dark ages today are real as we experience the slow death of US empire. I thought it might be timely to look at some of the steps that have led to creation and now dissolution of US empire. I'll be interested in your thoughts as well...

The Longest Night

It is darkest before the dawn. Tomorrow is the winter solstice, the longest night here in the north. Light and day length begin their slow growth this week until the summer solstice in June. Throughout human history the solstice has marked time and been celebrated. This year there's an additional show in the night sky...https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/great-jupiter-saturn-conjuncti...

In December, just as Jupiter and Saturn are nearly at their closest, the young moon will sweep past them. From December 16-25, 2020, the 2 will be separated by less than a full-moon diameter, just as the crescent moon is passing close. Jupiter will appear brighter, outshining Saturn by 12 times. Saturn is respectably bright, though, shining as brilliantly as a 1st-magnitude star.

Some say the conjunction of these planets on the solstice marks the beginning of a new Age of Aquarius. Despite the ravages of COVID, the Earth has made another revolution around the sun. Another year comes to an end, and what a long strange trip it has been. I'm more than ready for a new age...

The Longest Night

We are tied to the natural world in ways which we are unaware. Time is an odd concept constantly in flux....sunrise to sunset. As it passes the wheel of the year rolls ever faster...wearing ever smaller and gathering speed as it goes downhill. Perhaps it is our pagan past, but somehow this seems a time of year for reflection...like the god Janus looking forward and backward in time. For now the darkness passes and the light will grow. It is a time to celebrate across religions, cultures, and countries.

The Winter Solstice this year is more meaningful than any of the 0ther 79 I have experienced. Having been a Roman Catholic until 21 and then a Born Again Evangelical for many years after that I slowly discovered that it was all fake. Now I see the Pagan influence in every aspect of this season's sham celebration of the birth of Christ.