This year, the winter solstice will arrive at 4:20 a.m. ET on Saturday, December 21... the winter solstice is a quieter, more reflective time.
In 1894, the poet Edith M. Thomas published an essay in The Atlantic titled 'From Winter Solstice to Vernal Equinox.' The opening sentence is particularly evocative. 'My first glimpse of the morning was through a loophole of the frosted window pane,' Thomas writes.
Thomas keeps her senses dialed into the present, heightening her powers of observation: 'Looking off to the distant woods, my attention was attracted by the mysterious play of two wind-blown smoke-plumes proceeding from farmhouse chimneys.'
Commemorating the solstice is an ideal ritual for those of us who feel pulled to the changing seasons.
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