Solstice Approaches

From:

"Winter Solstice"

Wikipedia

Another winter solstice arrives in ten days, this time with a total lunar eclipse. Outside, beyond the screen porch, the skeletons of oaks reach up to a sky pale as death. It is impossible not to think of mortality on such a day, especially after suffering more stomach cramps and flu for two days. After my Wednesday visit to Dr. Malamis, and after receiving  a flu shot, strange it was to go from health to illness in less than 24 hours. Was it because of the shot, or eating a full meal at the Colonnade, big salad, fried chicken and limas? Or is there something else amiss, going back to my Thanksgiving illness?

It is noon, Darryl is still asleep upstairs, and I have watched a Swedish film about the troubled life a a woman photographer from World War 1 through the Twenties. Art arises out of  hard life experiences. No doubt, as I look around rooms of art, the huge Connatser in front of me that hung on my mother's wall for decades, two people conversing in a cubist world of turbulence. The Picasso lithograph of two figures confronting one another with masks. The Huichol jaguar with a peyote button on its forehead. Even the sculpted Buddha protected by a cobra. Art penetrates into the heart of life.

What better time to make merry, to decorate evergreen trees, to drink eggnog, and believe in sweet baby gods. The moon will turn blood red this Solstice as the dark winter caresses the Northern Hemisphere. Thus goes the cycle of death and rebirth. The New Year follows with dancing and champagne.