Here we are - we have arrived at the darkest night of the year, the earliest sun set, the least amount of light: the Winter Solstice. By tomorrow evening we will enjoy an extra minute of daylight and the earth will have begun, once again, its journey back towards the sun.

To my mind, it is little wonder that in the northern hemisphere this time of year has been marked with celebrations throughout human history. Before we transformed the way we live our lives by flooding our world with artificial light and warming it with profuse heat, the depths of the winter cold and darkness would have meant a contraction in all human activity and an increase in the difficulty and danger of life. Firelight was the only means to extend our diurnal existence. So, we can only imagine the joy and relief that arriving at this turning point would have brought our ancestors, heralding, as it does, the return of the light and the warmth and the life.

Ancient traditions across the northern hemisphere are strikingly similar in their celebration of this auspicious night, all of them aligning their celebrations with the movements of the cosmos. In the Roman Empire, the birthday of the Unconquered Sun, ‘Sol Invictus’, was marked on 25th December by present giving.

In China and East Asia the festival of ‘Dōngzhì’ (meaning ‘the extreme of winter’) is a traditional time for family gatherings and customary food. The Persian festival of ‘Shab-e Yalda’, also brings family gatherings as well as the lighting of candles, poetry readings, and a feast to mark the longest and darkest night of the year. For the Norse peoples, this time of year was called ‘Jul’ or ‘Yule’, and was a time for feasting, decorating trees and singing traditional songs.

As the Abrahamic religions of the Western world began to emerge, the link with the solar year began to be lost and celebrations focused not on the victorious sun but on the monotheistic male deity. Even so, the celebration of light remains significant in the Jewish December festival of Hanukkah and for Christians in marking the birth of Christ, ‘the light of the world’.

So as the sun sets tonight, 21st December 2020, as we reach this significant moment in the earth’s annual cycle, what will we all be celebrating? Our modern comforts mean that the return of the light no longer holds the significance it once did. Our scientific minds no longer fill with gratitude when the sun begins its journey back to its zenith once again. We have no impression of relief that the longest and darkest night is behind us once more. And even as most of us celebrate Christmas, the intended religious significance for many in the UK has been lost.

So, our festivities risk being devoid of meaning; our traditions no longer relevant; our merriment empty of remembrance. As we race through the advent calendar of our ‘to-do’ lists, we risk becoming disengaged and disenchanted.

“For in the end the universe can only be explained in terms of celebration. It is all an exuberant expression of existence itself”. Thomas Berry

Tonight, tomorrow, over the next few days, I’d like to invite us all to step back into a world of enchantment; to set aside the race around the shops for a while and enter into a moment of grace; to engage, once more, with the unfolding universe and celebrate it. And the way to do this, I think, is in the smallest, slightest ways; in moments of still contemplation and in minutes of quiet intimacy with the world around us. Step outside. Look up. Look deep into the hedgerow or wayside.

On a clear midnight you might spend a while watching the magnificent constellation of Orion stride east to west across the night sky the hilt of his sword pointing to his direction of travel: remind yourself that by midsummer he will no longer be visible, for Orion is a seasonal visitor. As a late December dawn breaks you might hear a robin valiantly defending its winter territory in hope of the spring to come. Robin is one of the only birds to be singing at this time of year so relish the solo, by May it will be just one voice in the choir.

As you walk, you might notice that here and there plants are filling with life even though the bleak midwinter chill is on them. In a south-facing hedgerow, protected from the prevailing wind by its counterpart on the other side of the lane, you might spot the flowers of summer - bramble, yarrow, honeysuckle and campion - all venturing forth. If you keep your eyes peeled, winter visiting birds may thrill you with their own annual journey, as a flare of redwings, did for us in the dazzle of a 4 o’clock sunset.

As we do this, we might reflect that whatever we witness is part of the seasonal transformation of our planet and that simply by noticing it we are bringing ourselves back into coordination with the wonder, magnificence and meaning of our surroundings. As we grow familiar with the cyclical rhythms of our immediate environment we are stepping back into the grand patterns of the universe itself.

And if we continue to notice, we will discover day by day signs that the light and warmth are returning: take note of the first snowdrop, the first time you see a bumblebee. If we keep our eyes open we will detect that the sun is rising slightly further east each morning as it begins its six month journey back to its northernmost point. If we watch closely, we’ll notice the days slowly lengthen as the seasons adjust.

Surely that is something to celebrate? Something worth gathering with loved ones to tell about? Something worth feasting and singing and exchanging gifts for? Something worth remembering, as our ancestors have done in a sometimes lost, sometime recovered, sometimes unbroken line since ancient times.

The Shortest Day - Susan Cooper

So the shortest day came, and the year died,

And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world

Came people singing, dancing,

To drive the dark away.

They lighted candles in the winter trees;

They hung their homes with evergreen;

They burned beseeching fires all night long

To keep the year alive,

And when the new year’s sunshine blazed awake

They shouted, reveling.

Through all the frosty ages you can hear them