Once again, the longest night of the year is upon us. On Dec 21, daylight lasted only 9 hours 42 Minutes here in NC, 8 hours 22 Min in Freiburg, Germany, 4 hours 7 Min in Reykjavik, Iceland.

In the old days, when people did not really understand how our solar system works, they worried about the sun and performed ancient rituals to make sure that the sun was strong enough to re-emerge from the darkness and start warming them again once spring came. For many people in the North this was also the beginning of the months of starvation, and they filled their bellies one more time on fresh meat and the wine, beer and mead of the fall before the fight for survival during the deep Winter months.

Today, we have other worries. For many of us, starvation is less of a worry than weight control. We do know that the sun will be back because we know how the Earth rotates around our star, but many other things are not so clear and reliable. So this holiday season let’s celebrate the things we can rely upon – the sun, the moon, our planet, our community, our family.

Cleo is pretty smart for a horse, and she understands the purpose of a fire. She stood there for the longest time with Julia, next to the fire, warming herself. Wally was not having any, however. He did not come near the fire. When I put out a flake of hay near the fire, he came over and gave the fire an angry snort, ate some hay and left again.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 22nd, 2010 at 12:02 am and is filed under Celebrate!, horses, photographs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.