CELEBRATING WINTER’S NATURE

People have been celebrating nature for as long as there were people. Many of the holidays we celebrate today are based on ancient pagan parties. We’re checking out some ways people are doing it today.

Photo: AliNomster. Winter Window.

Some people get grumpy when the days get shorter, but some find reason to celebrate it. The winter solstice is a magical time. And, once you get to the shortest day, you start to get joy as each new day gets longer.

Photo: Courtesy of Fly Over People. Winter Cattails.

The Romans started the candle and gift giving thing around Saturnalia, their weeklong winter solstice celebration. That’s probably why people do it around the diminished daylight of  Christmas time.

 

Royal Persians switched places with their subjects. Romans also enjoyed the solstice by switching roles, rank, sexual identity. The masters served the servants. Senators became common. Men dressed as women. Enemies became friends. Today, in dwindling hours of natural light, generals serve their privates in mess halls around the globe and we speak, at least for a short time,  of peace on earth.

Photo: Courtesy of Another Image. Lit lamps in the snow.

Yuletide logs and candles lit hearths in pagan Scandinavia. Bonfires helped Japanese Shinto farmers to call back the sun.

 

The Celts were into mistletoe, hoping for a fertile Spring. Today we kiss.

Photo: Susan McGillivray. Winter Morning Canmore.

We are loving the beauty of nature now, at its coldest, darkest. We still find the light and consider it more. We’re celebrating frosty mornings, dark when we wake. Now we don't have to rise so early to watch the sunrise.

Photo: Miguel Virkkuenen. “Plentitude of a Winter Stroll.

If we are lucky enough to have shelter, we can celebrate snow and ice, and the way they slow everything down and soften our view -- they way they soften sounds -- the way they brighten every surface. If we’re really lucky, we can celebrate the powder under our skis and the frozen drops hanging from our eaves.

Photo: Stephen and Claire Farnsworth. Winter hedgerow.

We can celebrate the color of gray skies, and the gnarly filigree of leafless branches. We can celebrate even the parts of the  natural cycles that we cannot see -- the ones deep in the ground as roots rest -- the hibernations and stagnations that allow creatures and plants to regroup and regrow when they  are more aligned with the sun’s rays.

Photo: Chad Coppess. Buffalo in the snow.

We can celebrate the flash of cardinals as they snatch juniper berries from deep teal fringed trees. We can honor the elk and the buffalo, breathing frozen mist. We love the whitened fur camouflages, betrayed by dark shiny eyes and velvet noses.

Photo: Courtesy of Encore.

The shortest days mean the longest nights. We can celebrate them, cuddling longer beneath thick down. We can celebrate with a few more precious moments of love and slumber. We can celebrate the way the groundhogs sleep, for another six weeks, until we test their shadows.

 

Photo: Jordan. Golden Gate Bridge.

 

Read more about Beautiful Celebrations, as they relate to Arts/Design, Nature/Science, Food/Drink, Place/Time, Mind/Body, and Soul/Impact in our posts throughout this week, including 10 Beautiful Celebration Books.

 

Get busy and enter the BN Competitions, Our theme this week is Beautiful Celebrations. Send in your images and ideas. Deadline is 12.23.13.

 

Photo: Courtesy of InterActiveMediaSW.

 

Also, check out our special competition: The Most Beautiful Sound in the World! We are thrilled about this effort, together with SoundCloud and The Sound Agency. And we can’t wait to hear what you’ve got! Now closed for entries. Judging is in progress. Finalists announced and voting begins 01.02.14.