Solstice

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Solstice • Written and compiled by British author Alison McLeay, Solstice was originally featured on BBC Radio Scotland on December 21, 1985. With the voices of Michael Elder (Shaman), Diana Olsson and Paul Young. Producer Patrick Rayner. • • It is now the Winter Solstice, the night when the sun dies and is reborn: a night of magic, which has more to do with our traditional Christmas celebrations than people might like to admit. Just for tonight, the Shaman lives ... • • Shaman: Stretch out your hand. • Stretch out your hand. • Don’t you have a greeting for me? • Today, of all days? • Ending and beginning day? • The day of death and new birth? • Merry Solstice! • Or, Solstice Greetings! • You have forgotten me, haven’t you? • Shaman: Your children tell sweet tales of me, and you laugh behind their backs. But I tell you, your children are wiser than you... • You still don’t remember me, do you? Think back…think back to the very beginnings…back to a time when the long darkness brought hunger to your fireside…a black stranger to live with you…the dull pain of famine. • Think back…think back to the times of the pounding heart, the ache of the chase, the madness of the kill, the smell of blood hot on the snow, the Red and the White. Red and White. When a dulling eye and the ebb of breath meant an easing of hunger…for a while. • Do you remember me now? • Your children draw pictures of me, an old man in a red suit with a white beard squeezing down the chimney with all they want most in the world. Lord of the reindeer, keeper of the game, as old as mankind. I am the shaman, the magician, the priest. When your heart beats fast in the dead of night, I am there. When you whistle or sing in the face of danger, I call the tune. I am your ancestor and your child. I am your guest tonight. And you will be mine. • Here is my invitation to your house: a green tree from the northern forests. See? Some things you still remember. An evergreen tree hung with lights and mirrors, sparkling gold like the glimmer of Solstice Fire through the forests branches. Red and White, blood on the snow. And today, the day of endings and beginnings, of death and rebirth. The birth of the sun. The Solstice. • Come with me…back to the beginnings…stretch out your hand to me. Stretch out over a thousand generations. Come and understand once more. • Shaman: The running of the deer. The rising of the sun. The song and praise of the woods, and the forests, the beasts, and the seasons. • And then one day the Christ people came, turning their backs on what is, and demanding what should be, as if they were laws of it all. They took that song, and made it theirs, just as they took my Solstice festival for their own. • The sun. • The birth of a sun, as it always was, for as long as mankind has gaped at the sky and questioned the light and the darkness. Birth of our sun… • Birth of a boy child…. • Their festival is trick of words, a fashion of the last few seconds of the history of man. • But while they try to drive me back into the shadows before their new born godling, the Christ people still feared me. For the shaman was their ancestor too. The blood on the snow… • So, they tried to tame me, contain me, cage me, turn me into a tale for little children. A bringer of gifts, a driver of reindeer, an old man from the North with a white beard and a little magic. But their children were wiser than they…in their turn, they remember the Solstice Fire. • O Day-Spring, brightness of light, everlasting and Sun of Righteousness. Come and enlighten him that siteth in darkness, and the shadow of death. Lighten the load and cast out the darkness of the spirit. • Do you remember now? Are the old memories stirring? • Pass as the Shaman passes, as thought in the dream. Pass with me to the edge of the pitching forest, the edge of the wind scoured plain…back to the very beginning, when hungry ice drew back, the bare earth swelled and the Hunter strode over it to the North. • Shaman: Smell the chill on the wind! Black winter is here too. The Red and White ridge is ahead; agaric, the shaman’s mushroom, the crossing to the spirit world. • Eat. Soon you will see the magician’s reindeer fly again, skimming the snow, speckled the air, riding the Northern winds, pulling a sleigh with an old man in a red coat, bringing gifts. • I tell you, your children are wiser than you. • The dark forest presses on each side. The ice casts an iron band around your chest, snatching breath. But there ahead is fire. Solstice Fire. • Woman: Red cat upon the hearth, striped with gold, spitting and twisting, could eat the whole house if you let her. • Shaman: Now do you see how you are favored? Midwinter blesses you, with a festival of over eating. • Full text: https://driftlessabyss.blogspot.com/2... • • 〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰 • • #WinterSolstice #Yule #Solstice

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