The indigo hours of Christmas morning; like the sun, even the dogs still sleep. Here at Red Willow, our small world is silent in the early dark.
There is no snow — not yet, anyway, and possibly not at all; the forecast has shifted it to tomorrow, although we know better than to rely on predictions anymore. Still, the clouds of night hang softly overhead, unwilling yet to awaken and move. A pale band of silver-gray light shimmers faintly to the southeast, early promise of the day to come.
Even in full sun, at this time of year, we live our days bookended by the fires of dawn and dusk.
We did not go to the bonfires last night. They are much more beautiful blazing against the snow, and we have had precious little of that at Christmas in recent years; none at all now, save what little dirty ice remains from the last storm in those places always in full shadow. Even in the absence of snow, it can be grueling, in the cold, and by Christmas Eve, we are both exhausted from two months of holiday-season work. It is very often our first opportunity in weeks to sit and rest in the knowledge that there will be no commissions to create, no orders to fill, no packages to ship on the morrow.
And now, safe against the elements inside our home, we have the great gift of being able to sit before the fire in the woodstove, in the shadow of the Christmas tree, and enjoy the peace and silence that comes with the night. A different sort than the sun, to be sure, but last night was, for us, a chance to be still in the light.
Today will occur at a slower pace than we have been able to enjoy since October. Oh, there will be the cooking, of course, but much of the prep work for the meal is already done. Many of the ancillary components of the dinner have been made: cornbread and wild rice for the stuffing, yeast rolls. In another hour or two, I will put the bird in the oven — a small duck, well-seasoned — and bake the sweet potatoes and squash. Our holiday dinners, which tend to be the primary way we mark most such events, are always a mix of our various food traditions, a way of infusing the old ways into the day.
And before we eat, somewhere near sunset, we will take outside a portion of every bit of food, and of the water too, and offer it — the first serving — to the spirits. There are so many at this time of year; the dogs invariably spend Christmas Eve night and much of the morning barking at that which we cannot see, occasionally giving chase to what appears to us only thin cold air. For us, this month is fraught with loss and memory: Wings’s father walked on ten years ago last Monday; another friend, this day last year; a brother in spirit, five years ago two days hence; and two years apart, two other dear friends on the day after that.
We see their spirits in the light.
Now, in the warming light of the woodstove fires and the glow of the Christmas tree, the world outside the windows begins to brighten a bit. Sunrise this day is not especially remarkable, although we were granted a few brief seconds of color, the scalloped edges of the clouds limned in deep rose. Father Sun has muted his glow, on this morning preferring, perhaps, the peace and quiet conferred by the veil of clouds to the gaudy brilliance of his more usual awakenings. Even the light needs rest, a chance to be still.
I suspect, however, that this center of our cosmos, this source of warmth and light and life itself who we sing and pray across the sky in this cold and dangerous time, will be ready for a bit of celebratory dancing by dusk. There may be no snow to spiral through the spaces and shafts, but sunset will bring us color and fire, shimmer and glow.
And with the falling dark will come the faint melancholy that attends such celebrations — the knowledge that the suspense is over, event near done for another year. It will time to get down to the business of winter, which, in a place such as this, necessarily means getting down to the work of survival. It is a hard season, and a beautiful one, and we have learned, through long dint of hard experience, not to rush it or to fail to appreciate it.
Life is busy; the daylight hours, busier still. Winter gives us an opportunity to allow our own spirits to rest.
And in those parenthetical moments beyond the indigo hours, those brief seconds of dawn and dusk, they give us an opportunity to stop for a moment: to breathe, to perceive the otherworldly beauty that is the gift of these days and the forces that animate them — to be, in the silence, still in the light.
May you be given such a gift this day, and for those who celebrate the holiday, may you have a Merry Christmas filled with beauty and blessings.
~ Aji
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