Today marks the official start of winter and the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. You don’t have to be a Pagan to celebrate this ancient holiday. You are probably already using some Yule customs in your Christmas decorations: evergreen wreaths, a decorated tree, and green, red, silver, and gold ornaments. With the sun setting early this evening, why not take your morning break outside and enjoy it while you can? Honor the natural world around you. Recognize the opportunity for quiet and stillness that darkness brings. Anticipate the gradual lengthening of days.
My plan for the day starts with having my morning coffee on the deck while watching the sunrise. Fanny and I will take a walk in the woods. After breakfast, I’ll fill the birdfeeders and hang some suet. I’ll do a meditation setting an intention for the winter followed by a short yoga practice with sun salutations, balance poses, and heart openers. Then build a fire in the chiminea so I can stay warm while watching the sunset. As a bonus, tonight is the Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. It’s the closest the planets will appear in 800 years.
Will you be doing anything special today, stargazing tonight?
I like your plan for the day better than my plan for the day, which involved going into the office where the heat seems to be malfunctioning.
Is that a good enough excuse to leave? You can work from home.
Short work week for me (Mon-Wed), so I’m scrambling to get stuff done at work. Other than a lunchtime run (?), probably nothing special. If I have some energy and patience tonight, I need to try an online yoga video.
Do Yoga With Me is a good site with a lot of free videos. It’s nice because they break it down into beginners, intermediate, and advanced. They also have cater for specific muscle groups you want to work on. I hope you’re up for it tonight!
I appreciate the recommendation! I see they have a YouTube channel, which is great because I can run that on my TV (Roku) and enjoy a much bigger screen that I can actually see across the room. Thank you, @hannibal.
You’re welcome. You can also look for different objectives- stress reduction, wake up, before sleep. It’s a good site.
We’re not going to get to see the Jupiter/Saturn conjunction–too cloudy today.
I’m making the last eggplant parm, hopefully for the rest of my life, to get through the fried/frozen eggplant in the freezer. That will get us to Christmas which will involve eye of round roast.
There’s a link to a live stream of the conjunction in the article above. It’s better than nothing. It’s pretty cloudy here too. The sunrise was anticlimactic. Some of the cloud cover is clearing so I’m hoping to see it.
doesnt look like its planning to stop raining here today…soo no stargazing for me
guess ill go netflixgazing again
last day of work for the year tomorow…so thats nice
Time for a farscy party!
So tomorrow the days start getting longer, right?
Yes they do, gradually.
Too rainy now to imagine seeing the excitement tonight but they say it may clear up. Wife is in semi-panic mode as we may get the vaccine in our clinic in a few days. The state has been so overworked trying to make this happen they are not giving us all the details & guidelines. Biggest one is they didn’t tell us about the paperwork we need everyone to sign! We had to find that one on our own. Once you open a vile you need to give 10 shots w/in a short amount of time so if someone doesn’t show up they want us to just waste it rather than find someone else that needs it? No way in hell that will fly w/ Mrs. Shaq! She also knows she can get 11 doses out of each vile which also may cause some gray area about who will get it. I see a chaotic rollout!
Poor Mrs. Shaq. I hope it goes better than expected.
I love that Jethro Tull album! I used to have it on cassette when I was a teenager. Have you ever listened to Pentangle? My mom was a bigtime folkie in the 70’s and 80’s and I learned to sing folk songs before I ever listened to pop music.
I’m trying to distract myself from the desire to strangle my oldest son, Bart Simpson style, because he left a green ink pen in his pocket (after I WATCHED HIM check his pockets) when he dropped off his laundry yesterday and it exploded in my dryer. Fortunately for him, his work clothes are all black shirts and dark jeans, BUT THERE IS GREEN INK ALL OVER THE INSIDE OF MY DRYER.
Shit like that was what pushed my mother over the edge and made her declare that my brother and I would be responsible for washing our own clothes henceforth. I’m still dumbfounded at all the bullshit she put up with when we were younger.
He actually pays me to do his laundry, since he doesn’t live at home and his place doesn’t have a washer. BUT STILL.
Looks like it’s time for a little “service charge.”
“Mom, what is this extra charge for?”
“My aggravation.”
I have listened to Pentangle, I almost used one of their songs! I don’t think there’s a court that would convict you for strangling your son.
The great conjunction!
We celebrated last night with a luminary party. Everyone put out a dozen candle lit luminaries in front of their homes and we toured the neighborhood together (masked and socially distanced). So simple yet magical and spiritually uplifting. It was the highlight of my year.
Ooh, that sounds very nice!