solstice gifts 2011

The winter solstice is my favorite holiday of the year. The thought of the longest night appeals to me, a life-long night owl with many memories of late-night revelry, creative peaks, and the quiet that falls even in the busiest of households when everyone but me is asleep.

I love the metaphors of light and dark, and have woven them into all my books. Jane's Transformation (book one in my Magical Pony School middle grade series) literally begins on the afternoon of the winter solstice. If novels have seasons other than that in which they take place, I think it's true that all mine are winter solstice novels, looking at darkness and light and how one contributes to the other.

Every year I wait for what gifts the solstice day will bring. A couple of years ago it was a baby raccoon in the big oak tree by our barn. Tiny little thing, a living metaphor of light and dark. He or she came down and you can see the painted pony (a metaphor himself of light and dark!) looking on with curiosity.

Another year there were black vultures in the tree by the mailbox, inky black against the white-gray sky.

Today I walked out to the barn to feed breakfast tubs to the equines and the first thing I noticed were the bare trees, dark with soaked-in rain, and the white overcast sky.

As I stood in the dim feed room mixing tubs, with my strand of white twinkle lights burning and NPR on the radio, Keil Bay started his Hanoverian breakfast chorus. He whinnies and sings for his breakfast almost every morning, but today it got quiet and I continued mixing. Although I didn't hear any horse sounds, I suddenly felt the presence of something close by, and I turned to find that Keil Bay had somehow opened his stall door, tiptoed across the barn aisle, and was standing with his head and neck inside the door of the feed room, in arm's reach.

Later I was dumping the muck barrow along my compost snake in the back field. I had my back to the forest and was looking up toward the barn when I heard something in the woods behind me.

A small herd of the November Hill deer were walking up the hill across from me, walking further into the woodline, almost invisible except for the white flashing of tails. Over and over again they flagged their tails, stopping and then slowly walking further into the woods.

The black tree trunks, heavy with rain, the shadows of the deeper woods, and those white flashing tails. Another wonderful solstice gift.

If you've read the story of November Hill Press you know that the deer played a huge part in its creation. Today, looking toward a new year, seeing them flashing their call across the clearing was its own bit of magic.

Happy winter solstice to all!