Lights & the Season

T he light is special this time of year.

Seems that, no matter where you are, the brief, bright winter light has an impact on people -- around the globe and down through the ages.

This winter has been dry and bright and cold for Southern California, but even without the gloom of rainclouds it gets dark pretty early.

I've been noticing the light a great deal this year. The track of the noontime sun changes from a 45 degree elevation across the southern sky, to a 90 degree overhead-noon in summer. This affects our comfort, and our electric bill, as the lower winter angle generates more power from our solar cells while the higher summer one is a longer trek, and hotter.

I am trying to grow some winter salads, too, but it has been cold enough at night, with a couple of soft freezes, that the salad patch is not doing so well. I blame the low light.

The broccoli and garlic and shallots, planted three feet from a heat-and-light reflecting southern wall, are doing well.

As a "farmer" and a user of solar energy, I am more keenly aware of the light than ever, although I have always been partial to indoor light less harsh than the average Edison-bulb.

Dimmer switches, candles and oil lamps usually cover my house; I lived in gleeful anticipation of power outages, just to have an excuse to fire up the candles and the oil lamps. What a beautiful, relaxed glow they provide for light.

Some mornings, when I am up before everyone, I need to see in the dinning room area but do not want to turn on the bright overhead light. Our 1903 house has the bedrooms directly connected to the dining area, so I risk waking the big kids, the wife and the baby. So I have been known to light an oil lamp -- just one, because more would be too bright(!) -- and pad around in the glow preparing for school or Saturday chores, or, with a certain deliberate irony, reading the newspaper online before it has washed up on our front porch.

We will note and celebrate the Winter Solstice this year, December 21 or so each winter season. Contrary to what some calendars might say, it is not the First Day of Winter, merely the moment when the sun reaches its shortest appearance in the daytime sky, shudders to a halt, and begins to lengthen, again, the time it spends warming my broccoli plants.

That's right. Everyday from the solstice on is a bit longer than the day before. Just like the Summer Solstice marks the longest day of the year in June, and two days later it is "Midsummer" of A Midsummer Night's Dream fame, the Winter Solstice marks the half-way point.

In ancient Celtic traditions, Midwinter marked a mythical battle between the Holly and the Oak, won each year by the Oak, the bringer of spring and the green.

We will note and celebrate the Winter Solstice this year, with a bonfire in the yard. The ancients marked the return of the sun with fire, some say calling the sun to return. (And what do you know, the sun always answered the call!) The cycles of the sun, more so than ever, seem important to our household -- notwithstanding that most of the rest of our modern culture is unaware of its importance.

Amusingly, the light-festivals of the ancient cultures can be seen all around us, and all cluster at this, the darkest time of year:

The Jewish "Festival of Lights," Chanukah, falls in winter months; Hindus celebrate Dipavali (Diwali and Depawali) in November, again "The Festival of Lights", Swedes celebrate St.Lucia Day on December 13, again, a festival of lights; Ramadan for Muslims falls in the winter space, as does the previously noted Bodhi Day, a day not of lights, but enlightenment and awakening. Kwanza, a modern invention, involves candles and the winter dark time. Modern Christians, and the secular Christmas-ians, celebrate with lights on houses and trees, even, in recent times, invoking the older phrase Festival of Lights frequently.

The light is special this time of year.