A late walk home through the Glen under a cold clear sky, a full moon rising in the North East and trees throwing shapes, dancing with the streetlights against the deepening blue.
I have been thinking about the winter rhythms, the pauses we celebrate in Cork, from the quickening and sharpening in the air of Samhain, crossing over from the last day of October to the first of November, one kind of new year, the days declining still to Solstice and the shortest day on 21st December, and then the big stillness, often with a similar quietness in the weather, the low cloud, white sky days of December, the settling in of Christmas & Stephen’s day on the 25th & 26th, harbouring a week long resting space till New Year on the first of January with a wake up call that rolls into the Epiphany and Women’s Little Christmas on the sixth. These stepping stones guide us through mid winter as the days shrink and the dark gathers and settles over us, deepening the cold even as the days are beginning to open up again for Spring.
