Happy Winter Solstice

Today is the Winter Solstice - the shortest day and longest night of the year.

Some cultures celebrate the solstices with festivals to recognize the cyclical nature of the world and our connection to it.

For those: Happy Solstice and Blessed Yule!

Personally, I always like to take a moment to note the Winter and Summer solstices. They remind me not to take nature - and our place in it - too much for granted.

I'm an extremely rational and practical person. I don't believe in - or really have a care about - anything magical or mystical or supernatural or paranormal.

So it might seem odd for me to say that I am often fascinated - awed, even - by the wonder of nature and by the myths different cultures have created to explain our world and man's place in it.

I love the Greek myths about creation and the seasons, and the Norse tales of the hero's journey, and Polynesians' wrathful fire goddess, and the many Celtic personifications of nature.

These stories are fascinating to me. From a literary perspective, for sure. But also from an anthropological one.

Ironically, it seems to me that the "average" person was more in touch with the natural world in ancient times - when we did not understand the "why" of it all.

Now that we can explain things from the astral to the molecular levels, we've lost some of our wonder.

We use clocks and calendars to track time, instead of the sun and seasons. Our homes are climate controlled to the point that weather is largely irrelevant.

Global positioning systems have taken the place of navigation by constellation. The lights of our cities block out the patterns of the stars. We speed by so fast in our cars and trains and planes, that we barely notice the animals and the trees and the rocks and the waterways.

We can touch the sky, we can leave our planet, we can see into other solar systems, and we can alter our own cells ... and all of that give us an illusion of being somehow removed from the rest of nature.

I get just as caught up in all of that as anybody else.

There are moments when nature still manages to break through all of the modern distractions and really take my breath away.

But, mostly, it's easy to fall into the fallacy that the beauty and wonder of nature is irrelevant to our everyday lives - that it's all separate from us.

So, at least twice a year - at the solstices - I like to take a moment to consciously acknowledge the beauty and wonder of this amazing world we live in.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not planning to shun modern conveniences and go live in a cave to commune with nature or anything.

Heck, I don't even plan to turn off my central heating today.

But ... for me, the solstice is a time to remember that we are all part of something bigger. It's a humble reminder not to take myself - or anyone else - too seriously. ;P

Happy Solstice.