Celebrating a sunless solstice morning

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I’ve had June 21—today—on my calendar for over a month, looking forward to the solstice, longest day of the year. I arose early to see the solstice sunrise from 3 Bridges Park in the Menomonee Valley. If you were out this morning you already know what I saw: fog.

Here is the view from the park in the direction of sunrise. I was out for a couple hours but there was no hint of sunshine. The gods must be displeased with something. I didn’t take it personally and did use the opportunity to take a quiet walk in the park. I wasn’t alone, either. Every few minutes I’d see a cyclist or someone walking along the Hank Aaron Trail.

More often than not they’d reply to my “Good morning” with “Buenos Días.” Despite the fog, it was a very good morning. Here are a few things that I saw.

I caught a few shots from other parts of the Valley as well. Fog inspires introspection. I've been thinking about the Viaducts and how they serve simultaneously to make a connection across the Valley and a barrier to access the Valley itself.

 

This post is one in a series that relates to my Menomonee Valley Artist in Residency. For more information about the residency and links to previous posts and photographs, go to MV AiR.

Winter solstice ceremony on Milwaukee’s lakefront

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“We are all connected.” ~ John Clifford, Lakota Elder, Congregation of the Great Spirit

On this the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, the sun never did rise.

Even the city, its towers enveloped in mist, seemed ephemeral.

We had come to Milwaukee’s lakefront to bear witness to the solstice, to honor the earth and its peoples, and to offer up special prayers for life-sustaining water. The ceremony was led by members of the Congregation of the Great Spirit, who engage in the ancient rituals four times a year, at the solstices and equinoxes. Out of respect for the sacred rites and offerings, I willingly complied with their request to refrain from photographing during the ceremony itself. (I shot all the accompanying photos either before or after the ceremony.)

We gathered under a great tree near the site of the old coast guard station, which had been used by the Indian community from 1971 to 1983. John Clifford, a Lakota Elder, began by explaining the importance of the site as well as the importance of the tree as a symbol of the unity of earth and sky.

Clifford lit an aromatic offering of tobacco and sage. We gathered at the tree. The first offering was to the “spider spirits,” black, white, gray, and gentle, which protect this sacred site. We then faced each of the cardinal directions in turn. Tiny bundles of tobacco were placed at the base of the tree. Prayers were spoken. The four cardinal directions are associated with colors, with the elements of earth, air, fire, and water. They also represent the four ages of humankind, new life, youth, adulthood, and the elders.

The solemnity of the ritual was maintained despite the intrusions of daily life: the sound of traffic on Lincoln Memorial Drive, dogs crunching through the frozen snow as they chased each other, joggers coming down off the pedestrian bridge/ramp. There was one brief perturbation of the mood when a colorful truck parked nearby with loudspeakers blaring “Jingle Bells” sung—barked that is—by dogs.

 

I discovered later that this was a business that offers sled dog rides in the park.

The emphasis was on water in in keeping with a Global Day of Prayer for Water organized by Milwaukee Riverkeeper and the Congregation of the Great Spirit. The most important message I heard during the ceremony was when Clifford invoked “all of my relatives.” By that he meant the earth and all people because, he said, “We are all connected.”

A free spirit? an omen? a kite caught in a tree. Everything is connected. I'm sure of it.

This is one of a pair of posts in honor of the Winter Solstice. The other is a reprise of my solstice story from Urban Wilderness: Exploring a Metropolitan Watershed.

Winter Solstice: a true story

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This is one of the stories from Urban Wilderness: Exploring a Metropolitan Watershed, which was published in 2008 by the Center for American Places at Columbia College Chicago. I offer it again on the shortest day of 2013. The story, written ten years ago, describes a County Grounds that has undergone profound changes since then. And yet, the grove of trees at the heart of the story remains intact, for the time being. May it ever be so.

Late afternoon sun glows weakly through a thin skein of clouds.  On this darkest of days, it has never been far from the horizon. We leave behind a house and neighborhood as yet unlit, from which all color has been drained.  

So begins my family's annual pilgrimage, a private solstice tradition connected to 4,000 years of ritual observances rife with the symbolism of renewal. At the winter solstice (literally "to stand still," referring to the celestial moment when the sun stops receding from the equator) ancient peoples often referred to the "unconquered sun" because its descent into darkness is arrested. Ritual helped explain this event and drive off the "monsters of Chaos" that might prevent the sun's return, with catastrophic consequences. Prior to the construction of elaborate structures for the marking of the solstices, such as Stonehenge in England, these rituals often took place at sacred natural sites, on hilltops or in groves of trees.

Traffic on the Menomonee River Parkway is thin; its fittingly subdued sounds fade as we pass through the empty park. Across the railroad tracks, in the County Grounds, urban slowly yields to wilderness. Turned but snow-free fields still bear meager, dryly rattling cornstalks, hollowed skins of squash, and carefully bundled staking sticks. Our footsteps fall on progressively softer earth; the concrete street gives way to asphalt sidewalk, then tire-tracked dirt road to earthen trail; then finally to grass as we step off the path entirely.  No paths can take us from where we live to where we want to be today. 

Formerly waist-high grasses lie in arrhythmic whorls. Rigid stalks of sturdier plants—goldenrod, teasel, and milkweed—stand like punctuation marks in an undecipherable text. Ahead stands the grove we seek, in its already shadowed hollow, as the sun burns softly on the horizon.  Across the open meadow the wind is biting, but dies when we reach the dell. Pushing cattails gently aside, I test the ice atop the tiny rill. There is an open rift where water runs, black and silent, but the ice holds and we step across into the heart of the grove. A galaxy of animal prints—rabbits, raccoons, and many birds—swirls around its center of gravity.

 Among the smaller maples and ash is a tremendous, old black willow, with so many trunks that they go uncounted. They radiate from its open center like ancient standing stones. Several have fallen and resprouted. One scarred limb lies horizontally across the middle, its bark completely abraded off by countless climbing shoes. It assumes the roles of megalith and altar.

Out of the wind, it is suddenly warm, despite the icy ground. To dispel the gathering gloom, we light candles along the broken limb. Overhead the crown of the tree glows brightly. It is the moment of solstice—the standing-still sun. Our vigil combines solemnity with celebration; it also recognizes continuity between ancient archetypes and contemporary concerns. We honor the spirit of this place, the animals that share its shelter, the larger landscape all around, and the life-sustaining Earth; we uphold the unity of Creator and Creation; and we do all of this with a particular awe: we are here, minutes from home, in the center of metropolitan Milwaukee, and yet in quiet solitude, in the urban wilderness. 

When we emerge again to the open field, the golden horizon has cooled to magenta and a fierce winter wind flies in our faces. But the "monsters of Chaos" have been contained again; the darkest night will soon be gone; the land will persist and—beyond superstition—the belief is rekindled, that we as a people will learn to live in harmony with nature. The unconquered sun will be brighter tomorrow. 

This is one of a pair of posts in honor of the Winter Solstice. Click here for "Winter solstice ceremony on Milwaukee’s lakefront."

Happy New “Cycle”

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Well, this morning dawned like any other, which came as no surprise to me. The apocalyptic predictions fizzled like so many previous ones have.

I did hear from one person who woke up this morning to the sound of unusual silence and a power outage. That proved to be the result of yesterday’s storm, however and not attributable to ancient – or modern – superstitions.

If you are still blissfully ignorant of the purported “end of the world” that some had predicted would happen yesterday, based on the Mayan Calendar, then good for you for living above or beyond the media chatter! Yesterday was considered to be the end of the 5125-year-long cycle that the ancient Mayan peoples used in what’s called the long count calendar. Presumably, then, the new cycle begins today.

Happy New Cycle!

May the next 5125 years be better than the last. At least by then whoever is around will know how this global warming business turned out.

I was delighted to open my New York Times last Sunday to find that their editors had turned to poetry to commemorate the event (or non-event).

Here’s one short poem from the collection they published that I found particularly trenchant:

AT FIRST I THOUGHT

The blue jay
Was the last leaf
To fall
When it rocked
From side to side And slowly tumbled
To land on the snow
Weightless
As a piece of sky
Broken off
The cold blue place
Where winter keeps
The number zero.

— TOM HENNEN

Of course today is also the winter solstice. So, if the whole Mayan calendar thing is meaningless, we still have that traditional reason to celebrate a new beginning today. I for one always welcome the return of the sun, gradual though it is. And what a beautiful day it turned out to be! Though the cold was punishing it was quite lovely while I could stand it. I went out to the County Grounds to look around at the new fallen snow and I make this offering to both the new Cycle and the solstice.

I will close with another poetic meditation, this one by Mary Oliver:

In the Storm

Some black ducks
were shrugged up
on the shore.
It was snowing

hard, from the east,
and the sea
was in disorder.
Then some sanderlings,

five inches long
with beaks like wire,
flew in,
snowflakes on their backs,

and settled
in a row
behind the ducks --
whose backs were also

covered with snow --
so close
they were all but touching,
they were all but under

the roof of the duck's tails,
so the wind, pretty much,
blew over them.
They stayed that way, motionless,

for maybe an hour,
then the sanderlings,
each a handful of feathers,
shifted, and were blown away

out over the water
which was still raging.
But, somehow,
they came back

and again the ducks,
like a feathered hedge,
let them
crouch there, and live.

If someone you didn't know
told you this,
as I am telling you this,
would you believe it?

Belief isn't always easy.
But this much I have learned --
if not enough else --
to live with my eyes open.

I know what everyone wants
is a miracle.
This wasn't a miracle.
Unless, of course, kindness --

as now and again
some rare person has suggested --
is a miracle.
As surely it is.

~ Mary Oliver ~