The longest day of 2017 is here.

solstice dawn

How will each of us spend it? Along with Albert Einstein, I believe imagination to be the most important and powerful faculty we humans possess. So I imagine…

…Since it is a work-a-day Wednesday, I imagine many going off to work as usual. Yet when they come home there will all those hours of light still left to garden, play baseball, go downtown, grill, go see friends… Maybe just sit outside and read.

Families with children newly out of school are coordinating schedules and activities

Bonfires are being built and I can imagine all the thousands of rituals to honor the Solstice that are coming together right this minute…

The Solstice will be recognized and celebrated all over the globe today. We continue to resonate with the heavens and their eternal cycles, even in our earth-bound doingness

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” ― Albert Einstein

YAY! This day has always been special to me. Where I live on the planet, the Winter Solstice in December is the shortest day and the longest night. After the Solstice, the days start to become longer, nights shorter. Light is in ascendance. For this I celebrate.

A bit of factoid trivia: “solstice” has its roots in latin, and means to stand still. To early humans, the sun seemed to stay in one place for several days twice a year — in December and again in June — before continuing its travel across the skies. Hence our twice-yearly solstices.

I revel in sunlight. It instantly lifts my spirit. As one teacher put it, “the Sun is the Master Shaman.” The master healer, medicine being, bringer of Beauty.

Enjoy the day. Celebrate our natural cycles and the return of the light, once again.

Winter sun in the South