Today is the winter solstice. Also called Midwinter; the Shortest Day; the Longest Night. It started at 4:21 AM. In a blink it was gone.

Although the winter solstice itself literally lasts only a moment, the term also refers to the day on which it occurs.

“With the turning of the wheel of time, let us keep our patience and rejoice in the winter solstice.”

~ Unknown

Since the dawn of time, winter solstice has been a significant time of year in many cultures and has been marked by festivals and rites.

Why? Some ancient monuments such as Newgrange, Stonehenge, and Cahokia Woodhenge are aligned with the sunrise or sunset on the winter solstice.

This all goes back to the new Stone Age or the Neolithic period. I find it fascinating and it’s amazing given the world in which we live that this is something that has lasted. And while this is sort of the shortest day of the year, it also marks the time when the days start lengthening again.

Winter Solstice embodies a moment of transition — a shift from darkness to light. The lengthening days following this pivotal point signify the gradual resurgence of warmth and vitality, breathing life back into the dormant landscapes.

Today is also the holiday of Yule. Celebrations include baking, so I will be doing more Christmas baking today. Yule originated in Scandinavia as a Norse festival called “Jol.” It was later absorbed into the Christian holiday of Christmas.

Many people will have a candle lit, so people find their way home and back into the light on the shortest day of the year.

By the time the winter solstice arrives each year, the sun sits at the lowest position in the sky it can.

So a fun quirky result is your shadow literally becomes longer and longer as winter solstice approaches. So, if you go outside at noon on the day of the winter solstice, your shadow will be the longest it will be all year.

In today’s messy Stepford world a lot of people have problems with the winter solstice because of its pagan roots. And I don’t know why they’re afraid of it. It is in almost every culture out there. Winter solstice, yes, has pagan traditions which in part focus on a spiritual connection with nature.

“Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.” ~Henry David Thoreau

I am neither pagan or wiccan, but I respect this day. There are plenty of things that have gone before us that maybe we don’t necessarily understand but it doesn’t mean we have to fear them either. They are just kind of part of the fabric of life.

I woke up today to unsolicited hate mail because you can’t be be different and on social media even personally. But this woman’s ire was solely due to enforcing rules of a social media group over something that didn’t include her at all. Quite literally I don’t even know the woman and she just inserted herself. The irony is this is a woman who in real life is not just a teacher, but she’s a special ed teacher in a Chester County elementary school. Reeceville. That kind of blows my mind because teachers know how hard it is to accomplish things some days because of the world in which we live. Yet here you have somebody who is supposed to be guiding impressionable young students who can’t even control her own behavior.

“This is the solstice, the still point of the sun, its cusp and midnight, the year’s threshold and unlocking, where the past lets go of and becomes the future; the place of caught breath.”

~ Margaret Atwood

And then there were all the people that felt the need to lambast me and comments to this site yesterday over my defending the neighbors who are having issues with the Pickleball at Upper Main Line YMCA in Easttown. These neighbors have all been pretty nice and I’ve been putting up with this and trying to work with this why for like a couple years it seems and they finally just had enough and here we have this newish sport that is supposed to be so friendly and happy and all these miserable people sending even me messages, including one local who was found out rather quickly, for imitating another friend of mine. I will note the person who was being imitated did the footwork and I’m actually amazed at how easy it was for him to find out who it was.

And once again, no one has ever said don’t have pickleball at that location. The neighbors would just like to be treated fairly and respected.

It used to be they disliked me online as a blogger because I wasn’t a mom Disney blogger or a mommy blogger. Then they hated me because I’m not exactly a lifestyle blogger talking about trends and getting free stuff. And I have no desire to be an influencer and there are so many people that would die for such an honor.

So now I think it’s back to most simply put I am not someone who can be placed in a convenient, non/threatening cubbyhole.

It has been a year of people lashing out about everything. And I’m not just talking about my own personal experience as a blogger or just as a woman, I’m talking about life in general.

“People don’t notice whether it’s winter or summer when they’re happy.”

~Anton Chekhov

It has been a crazy, nasty year.

I think some people have absolutely zero boundaries after Covid and I think it even predates Covid. It’s been with the onset of social media.

So enjoy your winter solstice day and do something nice for friends or family. And you don’t have to like every opinion I put out there. You don’t have to like every opinion that anyone puts out there you can scroll past.

“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”

~Albert Camus