Romantic Longings
In Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen poses an intriguing question. Is life in our present era unsatisfying compared to the golden ages we’ve left behind?
His screenwriter turned novelist certainly finds Hollywood life unsatisfying and longs to live in Paris. Given the opportunity to experience camaraderie with the writers and artists of Paris in the 1920’s, Gil is hooked. But Adriana, a young woman in 1920’s Paris, who dallies with Picasso and Hemingway, longs for the Paris of the 1890’s. And when she magically arrives there and meets Toulouse-Lautrec, Paul Gauguin, and Edgar Degas, they long for the Renaissance.
Are we caught in a web of perpetual nostalgia?
Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century writers esteemed Greek and Roman times.
Romantic writers longed for a simpler pastoral life and conjured Medieval myths.
The Victorians reclaimed both Greek mythology and Medieval literature, particularly knights, damsels, and the age of chivalry.
And where are we now? Mad for any age but our own? Feeding on nostalgia? Aching for heroes to romanticize?
Is time and place really what defines life? Or is it our relationships–those characters with whom we share our space that makes life worthwhile?
If you could be transported to any time and place where would you go? And if you could take your loved ones with you, would you stay?
The Lady of Shalott
by J.W. Waterhouse, Victorian painter
Winter Solstice
Winter is coming. We, in the northern hemisphere, feel her approach. She is the Ice Queen. Cloaked in glacial darkness, exhaling snowflakes in a great rush of crystal, she ushers us inside and bids us remember who we are. Humans. We are vulnerable to her whims, cannot control her, though, in our technological frenzy we arrogantly believe we can. Right up until she pulls the plug.
Astronomically, on Wednesday December 21 at 9:30pm, we begin winter, here on the Pacific coast. It is the longest night of the year. On this day, the sun does not rise until 8:05 a.m. and sets too soon at 4:16 p.m. leaving us with a mere 8 hours, 11 minutes, and 34 seconds of daylight.
But like the yin and yang, this darkling queen brings more than winter weather. She heralds lighter days. For solstice is a turning point. This climactic dark night ends with the birth of a new dawn, and from that moment, days grow longer once again. Winter Solstice is a Festival of Light.
In the Valley of the Kings at Brú na Bóinne in Ancient Ireland, my Neolithic ancestors celebrated the new dawn of Winter Solstice.
Photograph courtesy of newgrange.com
Brú na Bóinne translates to something like abode or palace of the river Boyne. It is the mythical home of the god, Dagda, his consort, Boann, and their son Oengus of the faerie tribes, the Tuatha de Danaan–though it was built well before the arrival of the Celts to Ireland.
Five thousand years ago, ancient tribes built three passage tombs from rock. One, Newgrange, has been excavated and restored. Built with keen intelligence and spiritual insight, this stone temple, consists of a roof-box above a portal and leads down a nineteen-metre passageway into a cruciform chamber with a corbelled roof. As the sun rises on Winter Solstice, its beams enter the roof-box, creep down the passageway, and finally illuminate the chamber. Her builders were Neolithic farmers who well understood the cycle of birth and death.
And so, the tomb is much like the womb of the mother earth. For seventeen minutes on Solstice, an elemental union occurs as the beaming light of the sun enters, impregnating her. Gestation follows over the darkling winter months, and then, new life bursts forth again in spring. By fire, the Ice Queen is melted, and life restored. A candle for the Ice Queen. Winter is coming.
To learn the exact time of Winter Solstice in your environs go to:
www.timeanddate.com
For more on Ancient Ireland, visit www.newgrange.com
To Charm a Killer on commuterlit.com
Watch for me this Wednesday Dec. 7, 2011 on http://commuterlit.com
Wednesday’s excerpt:
Someone’s out there killing witches. To Charm a Killer, Chapter 1 by new contributor Charra Rede.
Read more about Charra: http://commuterlit.com/contributing-authors/rede-charra/
Expectations change from second to second as new technology marshals us through the next decade, creating writers who must learn to market their own products. Sometimes challenging for us writing types who prefer the solitude of our inner sanctum, it must be done. The Winter edition of the Beacon Newsletter offers a great article on creating a writing platform.
