The Day After Solstice, and All the Days to Come

Solstice was yesterday. I have less than an hour until that is no longer true here. Thus flew time since I returned to Homer yesterday--two parties, goodies-making underway, and a lot of intense and important conversation. Otherwise, I would have written sooner, and would have gone to bed already tonight!

On the road yesterday, I got to see the Solstice sun rise--this picture taken around 11am... 

 The whole of Turnagain Arm frozen with that rumor of sun.

So cold, the water was boiling off the ocean as it came into the inlet.

A long, cold drive for me. The heater had been working some, but quit completely, and the outside temps were somewhere from five to fifteen below, plus windchill. A small amount of water I'd left in a cup froze inside the car between Cooper Landing and Soldotna (less than 60 miles). The hand warmers I had on my gloves and in my shoes felt like they weren't working, but they were just up against so much opposition. Lesson learned from last time, I stopped pretty much at every opportunity and sought out warmth!

But I thought it was important to register that the world did not end yesterday, as confirmed by "The Moose is Loose" bakery in Soldotna.

The stretch before Soldotna was a problem last time, so safe arrival in Soldotna seemed a good indication that the world was still here.

As it turned out, the final 72 miles home from Soldotna were the hardest. The sun had been making its long slow descent--in the south at this time of year, directly into my eyes--and finally finished the job around 3 or 3.30. The roads in this stretch were icier than anywhere else that day. So we went from driving with a bright light directly in your eyes (so that you can't see the road, or anything, at times) to driving in the dark on ice. Which is why there isn't a photo of the sunset.
Home safe and straight to a party.

Freezing my tail off aside, I'm grateful to have been able to reinscribe that rather stressful journey as something accomplishable. It's similar to what I hope for this 2012 Solstice. Many people were sincerely expecting some grand cataclysm or epiphany or ending. Many others, probably a greater number, thought it was a load of twaddle. My hope is that all the energy toward positive change and clearer intentions generated in preparation for this moment can be used to clear the psychic air around us, allow us all to become more conscious of how what we do affects the air, the space, each other, ourselves, and from that consciousness to make our choices. "No good or bad but thinking makes it so?" Well, I do think so; and, notwithstanding, simply these words, with no "think," no "believe," no "feel" attached to them: 
Peace.     Love.     Kindness.     Attention.     Intention.   Happiness.     Awareness.      Acceptance.

Happy Solstice, and all the days to come.