Thoughts Contingent on The Turning of The Long Night

He asked me, after his first, "What's the significance to the Solstice Vigil? I mean, I'm kinda not getting the symbolism."

I had been expecting that, and offered my answer couched in the mythology of it all; "Solstice night is when the Lady labors to bring forth her Son -- the God, back into the world. We stay awake and keep the vigil as any family members do, and should, when their mother, or wife, or sister labors through the night to bring forth life. Not because we can shoulder any of the burden, or make it easier on Her, but out of respect to the work She is doing, and the life She has created, and is now working to give to us."

And on one level, that is so.

But it doesn't actually go far enough, of course. Because we live in an age of scientific prominence now (Climate Deniers and Creationists notwithstanding,) and, as another friend pointed out to me, "I can't take it too seriously when I KNOW there's no danger of the sun not coming up tomorrow, you know?"

And he's right, too. We know it's axial tilt that brings the winter as well as the summer; that an eclipse is a predictable, and temporary situation, and not a sign of the End Times; that comets don't bring the Black Death; and unicorns don't cure poison, nor do hedgehogs invade vinyards in order to roll in the fallen grapes and turn their spines into hateful wee cocktail skewers. (Oh, medieval zoology, you stay wacky!)

So why stay up all night long then? It's not a cakewalk, that. On the far side of three, it gets to be quite an uphill haul, especially when you don't strictly HAVE to do it. I mean, to pull an all-nighter when you're cramming for a test, or writing that last minute paper, within a chapter of finishing your novel, or trying to get a show's worth of artwork framed and matted because it has to be in the mail first thing in the morning (coughTimcough) those are tangible, concrete reasons for pushing through the night. As is staying out and partying all night when you're on the leaside of twenty, think your liver's ironclad and gold plated, and that sleeping when you're dead is a viable option.

But to do it at home, in comfort on a winter's night, with little more than caffeine and rowdy TV to keep you from dozing off when three thirty AM comes sniffing around... really?

Yes. Really. Because sometimes our faith needs to tangibly remind us that it's not all going to be easy. Yes, the lengthening night begins to scroll back from here on in, but that doesn't mean the winter's over, or even that the worst of it's past -- contrariwise, it actually means that the hard part's just begun. It's going to get colder. The winter will get harder and deeper, and the slightly longer days will be little comfort against the grey storm skies and iron black trees. There's hope, and that hope will grow as spring creeps nearer, but we will have to work in order to see it through -- in order to see ourselves through, so that Eostar finds us in a position where we want to be.

Just as there comes a time during every vigil when nearly every cell of you is arguing in favor of closed eyes and a warm bed; of rolling over, settling into the doze, and letting things just roll along on autopilot, we will be tempted when our own lives get hard, to just coast. To figure that the axial tilt will handle things even if we have a nap. To choose to leave the striving to someone else and just float rather than fighting the undercurrents to get to the beachhead landing we have in mind.

And that's a choice which any of us can make, truth be told, but if you sleep while others row, then you don't get a say in where the boat's going, do you? If you stop pushing when it gets too hard, then your limits are where you've set them until you get up and start pushing again. If you say you're done, then you're done, even if you might have gone further.

Solstice vigil reminds us how to be strong. How to walk uphill for as long as the ground rises, and our road leads that way. How to keep going when stopping would be more convenient; how to keep believing even when the conclusion seems foregone, and the whole thing little more than a pantomime. Mummers, of course, were a Yuletide tradition for longer than long, and what is a Mummer but one who shapes the world in dance and mime, song and story, teaching it to follow in his footsteps to a place where goodness is triumphant, and evil collects only its karmic due? What is any ritual, but us informing the Universe of our expectations and desires, in hopes some influential force might be paying attention? We are Mummers through the night, miming survival and patient endurance while we wait for the coming dawn.

We sit the vigil on Solstice night because it isn't easy. We sit the vigil on Solstice night because not everything about life, love, faith, or God is GOING to be easy, but we are strong enough to meet its eye, spit into our hands, and take it on anyway. And a little, but frankly, rather difficult thing like staying awake all night to 'make sure the Sun comes up' is a way of celebrating that fact, even if we know all along it'll come up just fine without us.

And if we happen to drink wassail, eat gingerbread, and watch Top Gear while we do? Well, Jeremy Clarkson's ego is involved; tell me THAT doesn't add a few stone to the burden when all's said and sifted?