You have to bend to the weather, boy howdy.
The plan was to drive down to the Adobe Bar and listen to my friends (Bone Orchard) play what promised to be an exceptionally weird collection of original music, then come home and sit in front of the fireplace contemplating the renewal of the solstice. So far so good.
I left the house in heavy snow. Very slippery going, but OK, until I reached the curving hill just past the little Llano church: there were three vehicles cross-ways, at odd angles, blocking the way — all stuck and in danger of sliding backwards! So I backtracked almost all the way back home, then took the long way around down to the highway, bypassing the steepest part of the hill. That worked out fine, except for the speed bumps, which I wasn’t familiar with since I don’t take that road very often. I hit several of them rather faster than I intended, as I was sliding on the snow… But so what? I was moving, and I finally reached the highway, where I spotted a bizzare sight: traffic was backed up solid in BOTH directions, and neither line was moving! Geez. At that point I decided to turn around. Phooey! But it’s hard (and stupid) to argue with snow.
Exact moment of the solstice, 11:08 p.m. MST
I drove home — slowly — and set up my little entertainment area in front of the kiva. After appropriately fortifying myself, I played my bouzouki and 12-string guitar for about three hours. Just before the solstice, I suited up and clomped outside. It was magnificent! The wind had stopped, and the snow was coming straight down. For some reason, I wasn’t even cold. I walked up to the road and saw a small cottontail rabbit staring out me — when I shined my spotlight on him, he darted away into a tunney in the snowdrifts. There wasn’t a sound to be heard. I stood in the middle of the big open space with the snow falling down and turned to each of the four directions with my arms outstretched and improvised spontaneous prayers to Grandfather, the Great Spirit, and the Earth Mother. For some reason, I asked each of them to “hold me,” and I believe they did (and do). That’s my “church,” just me and whatever. It’s very sacred to me. My wife is very supportive, too, and encourages me every step of the way.
And now it’s morning. The sun is shining, and I’m off to town as soon as I dig the truck out of the ice.
Happy New Year to you all!
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happy winter solstice 2007 john
david in maine