December 26, 28016
SOLSTICE
So anyway, the Solstice passed in the penumbra of the last Supermoon of the most dolorous year of 2016, which saw DAESS stomping all over the people of the Middle East while committing heinous atrocities, the drift around the world toward right wing extremism and in this country a resurgence of the most vile, fascist tendencies this country has ever harbored, the deaths of some 25 or more brilliant lights of earth in music and the arts, the entire Arctic circle melting into the ocean and worse besides.
Nevertheless, there remain bright spots and of course the cosmos and the universe continue to revolve. Trump and his minions may have seized power, but the sun abides.
The Solstice passed with little complaint. Terry's Wiccan coven met out at Crab Cove to celebrate the turning of the year and for this time, Eunice the Moose remained in her paddock.
Old Gaia sits there on the rickety porch of the world.
Old Gaia sits there on the rickety porch of the world. Now is the time when Gaia tilts her weathered face creased with valleys, arroyos, hills, deserts, plains, mesas, continents and the liquid seas of her deep dark eyes towards a gaze at her son, Phoebus Apollo riding in his bright chariot as she sits and rocks ever so slowly in the ticking wicker chair, the folds of the quilted Universe draped across her lap, the rocking becoming the dance of Shiva, the creaking rails marking the ever ceaseless count of time's advance, ticking each second, each century, from the first moment of creation until that rocking chair stops at the moment of that last, terrible, motionless silence.
Some people confused by Astrological hoodoo believe in this day and age the season warms as the earth spins closer to the sun -- nothing could be further from that deception, unless it be the foolish nonsense of Mercury Retrograde, the classic illusion, for nothing moves with surer purpose than the planets.
As Gaia turns her face toward the light, her ravined face gradually warms with measured steps, deep shadow covering the valleys of her eyes, all the world warming up under rains that will welcome the Spring and life's renewal, and everything is precisely where it needs to be right at this moment while Phoebus Apollo gallops in his low-rider at an angle to her repose, harder to see, longer by degrees in his daily journey, a sort of side-show to beat all side shows.
After the longest night of the year, the shortest day, the hours advance and second by second the light returns to the world. In the half-light of the Underworld Persephone looks up from her shattered pomegranate and waits for her time to return to her mother while above the world endures a cold season of frost upon the land.
The Annual Xmas pageant at The Church of Our Lady of Incessant Complaint went well, as the continued good relations between the Catholic parish and the Lutheran Parsonage continue such that talent is allowed to traverse minor boundaries and petty differences -- according to Reverend Nyquist, we all are worshipping at the same altar; it is just some people toy with more distractions than others while doing so.
a few Lutherans in the choir always improve things
Father Danyluk is of the mind that a few Lutherans in the choir always
improve things, and a few stringers of sea bass from a successful fishing
expedition is not so bad a tithe to pay so as to achieve harmony that
is both spiritual and musical.
At Mr. Howitzer's the holiday party on Xmas eve went on into the early
hours -- everyone was jovial about the recent elections and Dodd had to
refill the punch bowl some four times until he was all out of fresh juice
and mixer and wound up pouring in gallons of vodka from CVS and grapefruit
juice to make up for it.
This did not matter so much and Mrs. Cribbage became quite wobbly on her high heels until she fell into the coi pond.
Because of the long school break, Ms. Morales actually caught up with her work for the semester and she and Mr. Sanchez had cookies and tea with brandy and they fell asleep together in the easy chair, Ms. Morales in his lap all curled up while the lights of the holiday tree blinked off and on.
Over at Marlene and Andre's, Martini and the crew had gone out to find a holiday tree more than a week ago and the best they could find was a sort of haphazard, lopsided, sickly and largely barren sort of thing that had been discarded from the lot located at the Presbyterian church. They had pulled their red flexible flyer wagon around to the Unitarian lot, but those trees all were potted plants like ficus and azalea, which did not sit well with the crew for its outlandishness.
with tears in their eyes they turned away
So they came around to the lot and looked with longing at the tall trees that cost a fortune of many dollars. Each emptied out their pockets and all together the crew came up with something like twelve dollars and fifteen cents and there were no trees for sale which cost anywhere near that. So with tears in their eyes they turned away from the brightly lit tree lot filled with noble firs and douglas pines and the busy man running back and forth with the saw and the plastic tape and they turned to go when Jose noticed the scraggly fellow left by the dumpster, waiting to be cut up and tossed in.
Javier stood up the tree which had lost much of its foliage and they generally agreed that something could be done with it, allowing a great deal of padding and so this tree they loaded into the flexible flyer transport to be brought back to the Household.
There the tree was placed into the washbasin tree stand and bolstered with cinder blocks and soon draped with all sorts of orniments found around the house and in the garbage and by the end of the evening the Household enjoyed a proper holiday tree, good for all occasions and all faiths.
For it is not the tree that counts, but the love that went into its decoration that matters the most.
That magical night, the opossum who had dwelled for a time in the bole of a previous tree emerged from the fireplace to snarfle around the house.
From far across the water the train wail ululated in waves from the light-studded gantries of the Port of Oaktown, letting its cry keen across the waves of the estuary, the riprap embankments, the grasses of the Buena Vista flats and the open spaces of the former Beltline, through the cracked brick of the Cannery with its leaf-scattered loading dock and its weedy railbed and interstices of its chainlink fence, dropping slowly over the basketball hoops of Littlejohn Park as the locomotive click-clacked in front of the shuttered doors of the Jack London Waterfront, trundling out of shadows on the edge of town past the Ohlone burial mounds to parts unknown.
