Four days until light from the darkest night

"Star of Solstice and Hope," 5 x 7 watercolor Christmas card

“I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” --John 8:12

Winter solstice, celebrated the world around through the ages because the sun and life-giving light  will begin its return from the darkest night.

We know not  what day Jesus was actually born, and the official days have varied, But Christmas Day, Dec. 25,   was eventually selected  to coincide,   to adopt and convert,  those popular pagan and other religious celebrations .

On clear nights, no matter how cold, especially in arid, desert  and rural areas, the stars provide light brighter than we urban dwellers can even imagine, and it is no accident that a bright star pointed the way to  another kind of light for the world.

Four days to Christmas, and the star beckons on the darkest nights of the years.

Sizzling Solstice.

"Sizzling Solstice," 5 x 7 140 lb watercolor

Heat storm...upper 90s and 100s all week. Saps everything, including motivation. So this was only thing that came to mind. And like everything else today, an effort. Drought in Oklahoma and the West.

A door opens--3 days 'til Christmas

"Opening," 5 x 7 watercolor Christsmas card

 Solstice is past. 

The "great conjunction" of Jupiter and Saturn, has lapsed, as is this year. Christmas nears.

Stars are doors...doors of creation, of dreams, of direction, of imagination...of increased light.

Red and green and turquoise door and adobe and snow...to me are  all the same metaphors and realities.

Today's watercolor, metaphors for rebirth.

Solstice Light

"Solstice Mood," 5 x 7 watercolor holiday greeting card

Darkest, longest night in a dark, long year.

When light is more rare, more precious. Metaphors for 2020 pandemics of disease, racism, violence, hatred, and political chaos.

"It's Friday, but Sunday's coming," a famous Baptist minister, Tony Compolo, https://www.tonycampolo.org/ once preached about Easter...but it fits in all dark times.

Light begins to return tomorrow, darkness begins to wane. More metaphor for our future, our present.

We need to remember the words of John about the birth of Jesus, "and the darkness has not overcome it."

When Darkness Closes In--5 days 'til Christmas

"If Winter comes," 5 x 7 watercolor Christmast Card

"If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?"--Shelley

When darkness closes in, as it has throughout this year, and the shortest day of the year looms, we need more light and warmth, especially mentally and emotionally.

Light and warmth are vaccines for survival in such dark, isolated times--if we accept them. Look at the stars, at the Christmas decorations...enjoy the brief moments of interaction with polite, kind people.

Treasure each moment, each memory, knowing that after tomorrow and as the year ends and a new one begins,  after medical vaccines and political changes, the light and warmth of sunshine begins to return, even if slowly.

As the days get shorter

"Solstice Mood, " 5 x 7 watercolor holiday greeting card

As the days get shorter, I value the light even more.

Think about that.

Solstice--4 days 'til Christmas

"Light, and Darkness," Solstice,  5 x 7 watercolor

Winter solstice, the longest night of the year, the shortest day. This watercolor is a year old, featured in last year's post about the magic and spirits of Chaco Canyon in New Mexico.
It's difficult to write something new about this event, without becoming wordy, and therefore demeaning the power of Chaco, of solstice, of light.
Better to remember that because of darkness, light is power. Because of darkness, light came into this world. Because of darkness, light gains power.
Jesus:  "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."
Here's the link to last year's post: When the stars are aligned
Today's version of last year's painting:

5 1/2 by 9

December Solstice Star--4 days til Christmas

Chaco Solstice,5 by 7 watercolor, 300 lb. d'Arches cold press paper

A thousand years ago, the ancient ones were measuring the stars and heavens in northwest New Mexico at Chaco Canyon. 
At solstice and equinox, I always think of them, of their remarkable achievements. 

The Chaco nova

They recorded the super nova of 1054. We know because of a pictograph that has survived these centuries. And much more measuring the movements of the  sun and moon with a stone calendar atop Fajada Butte.
The shortest day, the longest night of the year in the northern hemisphere. I've camped at Chaco on spring equinox, in the high desert, and experienced its magic.
A place of power still calls. It inspired this painting.

(Day 21 of 31 December watercolors)
Palette--Ultamarine blue, Phalo blue, cobalt blue, a touch of Prussian blue.

My photo from a few years ago.

Before Christmas--Solstice nears

Solstice--shorter days, years, lives--5 by 7 watercolor

The shortest day of the year looms, as the days and the year get shorter...like our lives.
Winter sets in, the light as brittle as the dropping temperatures.
Time to slow down, time for reflection, looking back, considering the future.

The day when you can see time

Susan and I at Chaco Canyon, New Mexico

There are two days a year when I think specifically about New Mexico...and this was one of them.
Coincidentally, and really unawares,  in the past week, as a matter of fact last night, I'd talked about camping out at Chaco Canyon, the site of the Anasazi culture that more than a thousand years ago accurately recorded and measured the movement of the earth around the sun.

Equinox dawn at Fajada Butte, where the Anasazi measured time

This day --equinox-- figured deeply in their religion and lives, and since I've camped there several times, it figures deeply in my life cycle.
I've written about it on this blog many times, and may not be able to add much original this year, but I'm still drawn to it, to the memories, to the power that still resides in that place

Camping on Equinox at Chaco

I was last there about five years ago, camping out alone, and it was freezing cold. I'd been to see my late uncle Mike in Santa Fe, and then headed northwest, eventually 25 miles off the paved road, to silence, to solitude, to imagination and much more in the high desert.
I don't know if I can convince my very urban wife to go there overnight in a tent on the ground, but the place is calling. It always does. To me it isn't about history, it's about eternity--present tense.

You can see time move... 

You can see time move there, from the stars wheeling overhead, to the shadows of  the rising and setting sun climbing up the sandstone cliffs, to the ancients' markers in their stone architecture. 

These ruins are not vacant

And those ruins are not vacant, as the Pueblo Indians will tell you. They are still inhabited by the spirits. That I believe, else why would my spirit be so drawn two specific days a year, and in between?

Fajada Butte--watercolor

Links to a few previous articles from the past seven years:
Where you can travel in time
When you can see time
Solstice dawn and days missed
When the sun stands still
Poetry in the canyon 
Where you can see time 

Drizzly December Oklahoma day

Today's watercolor, 5 1/2 by 11 300# d'Arches

It's a cold, drizzly, gray December day outside my window...fitting for solstice. I know there are more lonely places in Oklahoma, rain coming down, tree branches bare...winter is here. A good day to stay inside.

December's doldrums

If December comes, can drab cold be far behind?

December...the word even sounds colder than November. No fall isn't over officially yet, but you treasure each day when the temperature is in the 50s. We know what is lurking on the horizon, in the Canadian north.
The days turn drab, withstanding the blitz of Christmas glitz and glitter and the assault of commercial noise, from the ringing of Salvation Army bells to the non-stop non-religious "Christmas" music blaring from stores.
Everyone seems ready for the year to just be over--at school and work--knowing the frenetic hassle that ironically leads up to a day honoring the "King of Peace."
Home becomes a sanctuary, from the coming weather, and the looming lunacy of packed stores. That's when it's good to decorate the tree, sit down by the fire, read a book, talk and laugh, pet the cats, drink some  wine, and hear "Silent Night." Only then does December bring calm.

Solstice dawn and days missed

Dawn at Chaco Canyon

The longest "day" of the year, when time, the sun "stands" still--the literal translation of "solstice,"  

as the sun begins its journey toward shorter days. This marks also the end of an unintended  three week "blogcation," the longest interruption in writing in the five year history of Coffee with Clark.

It is appropriate to show a photo of one  of the places of power in the world,

one of my places--Fajada Butte in Chaco Canyon in New Mexico. Atop that 300-foot sandstone land mark is a "sunmark"--where the Anasazi more than 1,000 years ago erected  stones  to form a "sun dagger" to accurately record the solstices, equinoxes and even moon cycles. It probably had to do with planting seasons, and more, with religious rites. 
We increasingly urban folks mark the first day of summer or other seasons on a calendar, but are so out of touch with nature and the universe that  seasons don't have as much meaning as they used to. For us, "time flies." Time may not have stood still with multiple ideas that were "meant-to-have-been" blog posts, but weren't. Even this one is difficult, but like an eventual shaft of sunlight between rocks, there are more stories to tell. 

Alas, vibrations from the increased traffic far below Fajada, and the years, have shifted the rocks, even with restoration by Park personnel. So today's solstice didn't quite hit the mark.  I can not imagine the knowledge and patience it took to build a site like this, or the ones at Mayan and Inca sites, or at Stonehenge. Years were required.
The only way to see Fajada at dawn is to camp there overnight, 26 miles of gravel road off the highway in northwest New Mexico. It's cold, but so worth it. At night, you can see the stars move overhead, actually sense the earth moving. And as the shadows climb up and down the sandstone cliffs at down or sunset, you can see time.
so in the time that's flown by these last three weeks, there were going to be posts on Reduxion Theatre, on Frank Francese's watercolor workshop at IAO, on the 40th Prix de West art show, on music at Paseo, on freelance writers, on the 107th country blog reader, and more. You can't "catch up" in time, but you can get glimpses of the past, at Chaco, and in words, soon.