On Winter Solstice
You’ll step in from the darkness, through the lancet double doors, in your black patent shoes and red velvet dress underneath your winter coat, the tips of your fingers tingling. You’ll walk behind Grandma, her sturdy figure and steady eyes leading the way, the smell of powder and her fur coat trailing behind her. A thousand little bishops’ hats a glow warming your insides. The walls alive with shadows. You’ll stop and offer a smile that courtseys to the lady at the top of the aisle as she hands you your own little pencil candle with its own little cardboard drip catcher. Then huddled in close on the pew, you on one side of Grandma, your sister on the other. Two individual worlds orbiting around their centre. Mum at the front of the altar, her hands hovering and casting spells on the keys, the frequency of the drone filling your body with another sense of being. Your heart responds. You’ll sing at the top of your voice to every hymn throughout mass, secretly knowing your mum will hear your voice through the thickness of the congregation and be proud of you for joining in. You’ll swing your legs and look around, waiting for the lady who lights the candles to approach your pew and you’ll follow Grandma’s commands when they get to the end of yours. It only takes one flame. Then, your eyes will fix on the translucence before you. The blue and the cream and the yellow. The way it lifts and dances as people move and cough and fidget around you. The way it breathes. The way it’s there, but not really there at all. You’ll wonder how the candle feels as tears roll down the sides of its body and puddle on the cardboard. You’ll glance at Grandma’s eyes and stick your fingers in the wax that’s pooled around the flame when she’s not looking. And by the end of the ceremony you’ll have at least one whole hand’s worth of waxy gloved fingertips that you’ll pop off and put into your pocket. Later you’ll study these ghostly impressions and as an adult, you’ll wonder how much of yourself you press into the present.
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Several Christmases ago, myself and two treasured friends spent the afternoon making orange pomanders in my friend’s parents’ Victorian home. We emptied our earthly treasures along the dining table, displaying an array of acorns and twigs and ferns and berries while Frankie sniffed at our feet. We pushed clove spindles into flesh, oozing scents of citrus into the room. Our hands, sticky and sweet, blurring into the busyness of the festivities. Afterwards, when each of our baubles were strung up in competitive charm, we lit the candles and poured the wine and feasted together.
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I struck the match against the bottle and brought the fireplace to life. It was mid-winter and the house was unbearably cold. I sat back on the deep seated couch and looked around at the artwork on the walls. All those faces and eyes peering out from behind the glass. It was only 3pm but the sky had fallen and a heavy darkness hung above the village. The streets were quiet. I don’t own a TV. When I was gifted my first guitar, I gave away my TV. It was a way of disciplining myself. A bargaining between me and my inner voice to change my behavior, to change my path. At Summer Solstice, the old gothic house is at its best - light bursting in through the lead-diamond windows, a garden abundant, lavender lingering in the air. But in the winter, the house feels like a traitor, whispers behind you, creaking from below. The clock dragging its hands around the slow passing of the day. My own hands pressing, strumming, pressing, strumming, trying to fill the silence.
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People say that light therapy is the best antidote for Seasonal Affective Disorder. Additional light encourages your brain to reduce the production of melatonin (the hormone that makes you sleepy) and increase the production of serotonin (the hormone that affects your mood). In the winter, in Scotland, on the shortest day, the Winter Solstice, there are 6 hours and 57 minutes of daylight. Given that most people work during the day, it becomes a bit tricky to make the most of natural light. It all becomes a bit tricky at that bleak time of year.
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The last time I saw Rachel Sermanni perform was at Edinburgh’s Summer Hall in September. A dear friend organised the tickets. We left the gig in an afterglow of Rachel’s performance and we chatted all the way home about important things, under the light of the Harvest Moon. When we stepped out of the car we decided to take ourselves on a midnight walk through the forest. As we scuffled along hardened muddy paths, into the quiet of the woodland, Mama Moon shone down brightly leading the way, winking up at us from puddles, reminding us that we were safe. Winter would soon be upon us, the darkness of the season looming, the nights closing in. Two friends and their shadows walking through the wilderness. Our prayers moving outwards and upwards to the sky.
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Her mindfulness teacher, the one for whom she is eternally grateful, is always offering the reminder: your gold is within you, just keep mining.