Peg Kerr's Journal

I often post a song for the Winter Solstice on my blog. I went to YouTube looking for one and found an entire mix. If you'd like to hear some lovely Solstice songs, here is the link.

Enjoy the music, and happy Solstice! Lighter days are coming, and I, for one, am glad.

Here's a song that's on my Midwinter list, and it's a lovely song that touches upon Solstice, Advent, and the end of the year and beginning of the new. It's a good wish to send out to my readers near and far. I hope you have a lovely

Jiggernaut - Midwinter (Album: The Well. See it on CD Baby here and on iTunes here)

Blossoms of spring
are the green leaves of summer
then autumn's splendor
will follow the sun
carvings in stone and
seasons encircle
the old year has ended
a new one's begun

Chorus:

Set a light in your heart
to ward off the darkness
set a fire in your heart
to keep till the spring
let the Advent of love
keep us warm in midwinter
find a song in your heart and sing
find a song in your heart and sing

gather regrets
like deadwood for kindling
sweep out your soul
release doubt and fear
plant seeds of joy
let your light flourish
light a fire on the darkest
day of the year

Chorus

Make ready your home
and welcome the stranger
bring what you have
and take what you need
the table is set
the door it is open
love's feast is prepared
and time for to feed

Chorus

keep watch in the night
a new day is dawning
when love and peace
shall blanket the earth
hunger and war
will be all but forgotten
when death will give way to rebirth
when death will give way to rebirth

Chorus

(here's the song in Mog. If I'm doing it right, I think you'll be able to listen to it there.).

In honor of this day, and in honor of the sunlight returning, here is one of my favorite songs, by the Minnesota songwriter Peter Mayer.




( Lyrics and chords )

I went to the drum jam. I drummed (thanks to minnehaha for the loan of the drum. I danced.

I hope you are all pleased that I help drive the dark away.

Tonight's the winter solstice drum jam at the Cedar Cultural Center. Come see the firewalkers and help drum away the longest night of the year. Tickets available at the door, only $10. Kids under 10 are free!

Tomorrow night (Friday the 21st) the Cedar Cultural Center will celebrate the longest night of the year by holding their annual Winter Solstice Drum, Dance and Fire jam. This is a really fun event which goes all night long, featuring jugglers and fire walkers and many, many drummers. See the Cedar Cultural Center's description of the event here. I went last year and had a fantastic time; see my post about it, along with some photographs and videos of the firewalkers here. Doors open at 6:30 p.m., and the opening ceremony is at 8:00 p.m. Tickets are $10.00. Well worth it, in my opinion. Kids are welcome. Bring your drum and your dancing feet.

(And thanks once again, minnehaha and jbru, for telling me about it!)

I could hear the drums even out in the lobby. Perhaps a hundred people, perhaps more, sat in a circle, hands pounding on a huge variety of drums: djembes, congas, dununs, and shaking bells and shakers. A woman came forward with a singing bowl. She walked slowly, following the beat of the drums, chiming the side of the bowl. She called forth air, fire, water and earth, and women representing each of these figures came out and danced. Other dancers dressed in white came out, holding candles, which were used to light torches, and then the fire dances began.

( Click here for pictures )

The fire dancers came out about once every hour and danced for us, strutting, sweating, laughing, throwing torches and catching them and spinning them around, feet pounding in time to the beat. They were sinuous and sweaty, powerful and mesmerizing. Meanwhile, the drumbeats thundered on and on, even when the dancers retired, rumbling the ground under our feet, sounding in the blood and the bone, like the heartbeat of the earth itself. I drummed for awhile when someone let me use his instrument. I've never done it before, and I managed to jam a finger somehow, so I stopped and relinquished the drum again. Anyway, I preferred to dance. I danced for a couple of hours, grinning with joy, sometimes holding my finger to the pulse in my neck so that I danced in time with my own heartbeat, sometimes twirling so that the torchlight and the fairy lights slurred in my vision into tracks of whirling orange, yellow and red. The smell of incense mingled with the tang of the fuel from the torches. The room stayed dark, except for the fire, and the candles set on the altar on the stage, and the black lights that illuminated the scarves that the jugglers kept flying. That was all right; we weren't afraid of the dark, but sang out to it, keeping the drum beat going to call forth the light that we knew was still there waiting for us, once we danced our way through the longest night. On and on it went, utterly powerful and confident and sexy and primal, and I was stunned by the waves of joy I felt welling up inside myself in response. Joy from knowing that I have made it to this darkest night and that I know I will make it through it. Joy that the depression that I suffered from so last year has lifted, because of the walks I have taken every day in the sun.

I knew that the drummers would drum throughout the entire night and I wanted to stay. But I was tired, and I knew I needed to get up early, so I said goodbye at about 11:30.

I could still hear and feel the drumbeat thrumming through my veins as I drove home.

I definitely plan to come back next year.

Edited to add: ( Click here to see videos )

.

Light a candle
Sing a song
Say that the shadows
Shall not cross
Make an oblation
Out of all you've lost
In the longest night
Gather friends
Cast your hopes
Into the fire
As it snows
Stare at God
Through the dark windows
Of the longest night
Of the year
A night that seems like a lifetime
If you're waiting for the sun
So why not sing to the night time
And the burning stars up above?
Come with drums
Bells and horns
Come in silence
Come forlorn
Come like miner
To the door
Of the longest night
Deep in the stillness
Deep in the cold
Deep in the darkness
A miner knows
That there is a diamond
In the soul
Of the longest night
Of the year
A night that seems like a lifetime
If you're waiting for the sun
So why not sing to the night time
And the burning stars up above?
Maybe peace hides in a storm
Maybe winter's heart is warm
Maybe Light itself is born
In the longest night
In the longest night

-- Peter Mayer, Midwinter

A blessed and bright Solstice to you all.

This goes out to you all my LiveJournal friends, both the ones I've gotten to know and the lurkers too, on this, the darkest day of the year:

The day was as black as a raven
With winter's cold breath blowing hard
She issued a warm invitation
Printed plain on a simple white card
Bring your lamps and lanterns here
On this last darkest day of the year
Let our hearts be burning bright
Through the window, I'll see you tonight

Candles and other relations
Waltzed through the door and in time
There were stories of illumination
While Aurora went dancing outside
Bring your lamps and lanterns here
On this last darkest day of the year
Let our hearts be burning bright
Through the window, I'll see you tonight

There were pictures of lighthouses shining
A red miner's helmet aglow
And the moon would come out of its hiding
Flowing down on the cover of snow
And a small quiet few sat together
Faces she knew and had spent
Seasons for worse or for better
She raised up her glass then to them
And she said, "You're my friends
And wherever life takes me or when
You're my home, that's the truth
And the light through the window is you."

So bring your lamps and lanterns here
On this last darkest day of the year
Let our hearts be burning bright
Through the window, I'll see you tonight
Through the window, I'll see you tonight

--Ann Reed