NEW DAY, NEW SEASON

The rising sun varnished the tops of the sycamores across from the cottage this morning. Which hasn't been the case for at least the past couple of weeks with skies remained dimly, darkly, resolutely gray. I don't mind successive days of overcast, but the bright and cheerful sunlight will surely perk up and please Myladylove, a mild sufferer of seasonal affective disorder.

Of course, even during the dreariest of mornings, a jaunty old redbird can cheer things by merely appearing at your window in his flaming scarlet attire.

Today is not only our first sunny morning in a while, but the day of the winter solstice. The shortest, darkest day of the year…and the official start of winter. 

However, some of us view this latter new season business as nothing more than another failure of vacuous governmental meddling. An example of what happens when those ignorant in their grasp of what's happening, oblivious to both history and logic, and blinded by the self-perpetuated fantasy of their own importance, attempt to control by bureaucratic decree what was never their's to control in the first place, and over which their bluster and mandate have absolutely no power.

Don't get me wrong—we agree with the science of the solstice. But we're bemused how some foolishly think they can schedule in a season like they would a visit with a cash-carrying lobbyist seeking to buy votes.

Seasons keep their own schedules—coming and going as they will. So far as most of us are concerned, it's been winter hereabouts for well over a month. 

In the old days, the winter solstice would have marked midwinter. Logical, seeing as how from this point onward, daylight begins lengthening, the sun heads our way as spring's promise creeps resolutely toward becoming a fact. That makes sense. And seeing as how our journey to spring starts here, it would also make perfectly reasonable sense to start the new year here, today, with this passing of the solstice. That seems logical, keeping in tune with nature and natural events and rhythms.

But then civilization and progress are about distancing ourselves from the natural world and separating our lives from nature.