The Winter Solstice

Tomorrow my world will begin its long, slow climb into the light of summer.  pl

 

Comments

[A.Pols]

As a "SAD" sufferer I have a nearly pagan appreciation of the Solstice as a turning point in my year...
Cheers; count forward the added minutes of daylight.

[BraveNewWorld]

Thanks for the reminder. I've been looking for a ray of sunshine in this world and that was it.

Best of the season to you.

[mike allen]

A victory of light over darkness. A Yalda greeting to all Assyrian, Kurdish, Iranian, Zoroastrian, and Baha'i friends!

[Alexandria]

Happy Winter Solstice. Like you, it's one of our favorite days of the year. I remember that you and Marguerite came to a WS party we convened a number of years ago. We will do it again, hopefully, next year.

[Babak Makkinejad]

Yes, indeed - Happy Yalda:

From 2012

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DL5zuyNVKOs

[Charles Michael]

My thougth exactly, Colonel
and my hopes.

[Valissa]

Happy Winter Solstice everyone!

Winter Solstice - Michele McLaughlin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWlsdE9ms-Y

[Tyler]

Seventy degrees here in Phoenix.

Might have to put on a fleece if this cold snap keeps up.

[The Twisted Genius]

I can't believe how I miss skiing and snowshoeing through a silent, snow covered pine forest like the one in the photo. It brings me close to the God of my upbringing and the gods of my ancestors at the same time. This is the celebration of the rebirth of Saule, the sun goddess. I was taught that the Lithuanian flag honors Saule, the goddess of our ancestors, in the top yellow stripe. The middle green stripe symbolizes our boundless, primeval forests and the bottom red stripe honors the blood of our martyrs.

[turcopolier]

TTG

I don't miss La Merde Blanche as my Chasseurs Alpins buddies called it. But, I do remember standing outside our little house on the Kennebunk Plain listening to the snow fall. As you probably remember, if there is a heavy dry fall onto old snow on a still night you can hear the snowflakes landing. Airborne! pl

[The Twisted Genius]

pl,

Thanks for the memory. Now I miss it even more. I guess that's why I still have no regrets about being a winter ranger, even though two classmates died from hypothermia.

[walrus]

Happy Solstice. Here it's the longest day of the year. We will have scorching heat for Christmas and Boxing days, luckily Joan's eldest bought a speedboat and the lake is minutes away....or maybe we will just laze in the river. Merry Christmas to all at SST.

[Bobo]

A good friend passed on this week so I will relate our snow story.
I was enroute back from Miami (after a week of sun) when our plane was diverted as Logan was snowed in due to a an early February blizzard and got bused over to Penn Station. Got my ticket to Boston and while moving towards my train when we bumped into each other and commiserated. We grabbed a couple of six packs and went to the back of the train. We made it into South Station where there was 18" on the ground. Called home to the old man (an adventurous sort) and relayed my story and he promised to meet us. We jumped onto the Blue Line and road it to Revere. Only two passengers left on the car so we went out into the blizzard (Bitchin and moaning) and there at the end of the parking lot (half mile away) a set of headlights. My buddy tossed his duffle over his right shoulder and grabbed his shoes in his left hand and off we went. They had given him a pair two sizes small at El Toro. We made it to the car and slowly made it home to the North Shore to his Mother. Made the old man proud to bring a JarHead home. That was '68 and a big difference from Khe Sanh so he said.

[Keith Harbaugh]

Totally off topic, but the colonel might be interested and have something to say about this:

Michael Sekora. A noted physicist, he founded Project Socrates, a classified U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency program established in 1983 within the Reagan administration. He holds that the cause of U.S. industrial decline is that U.S. decision-makers abandoned technology-based planning and adopted economic-based planning at the end of World War II.

From
"Trump Has A Sound Trade Policy,
But Where Will He Get Sound Trade Policy Aides?"
by Eamonn Fingleton
2016-04-30
http://www.unz.com/efingleton/trump-has-a-sound-trade-policy-but-where-will-he-get-sound-trade-policy-aides/

For Project Socrates, see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Socrates

[Cortes]

Well, as a resident of Glasgow

https://tools.wmflabs.org/os/coor_g/?pagename=Glasgow&params=NS590655_region%3AGB_scale%3A25000

Which at 55.5 degrees N is distinctly darker at this time of year than all of the continental USA bar Alaska, sunrise today 0855, sunset 1544, perhaps the following information may be of use.

My sister works with a surgeon of south Asian background. Said surgeon had been complaining of various ailments and finally consulted her MD (GP in sterling) and discovered that her Vitamin D count was at the soles of her feet. After a couple of months of treatment she felt like a million dollars better. Sis and her colleagues are following suit. FYI.

And onwards to the sunlit uplands for all at SST!

[YT]

This unfilial son had to abandon an age-old Tradition due to his glaucoma-stricken mother.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dongzhi_Festival

[trinlae]

Yuletide greetings accommpanied by Gurkha Khukuri Dance!

https://youtu.be/kBbSumXdUnA

[Henshaw]

It's good to see SST'ers marking the occasion of the Winter solstice and the return to warmer weather. Here in Canberra the summer solstice slips by almost un-noticed. It's already warm, and we're looking at 90 degrees F for Christmas Day.

Best Christmas wishes to all SST'ers, and hoping for good things in 2017.

[crone]

Happy Winter Solstice all! Sunshine... Light...

[different clue]

I have begun my preparations for the slow sky-climbing sun by digging up all the snow from off my back yard and packing it onto my back-yard garden bed just south of my south-facing sliding glass patio door-window. Then I shaped the surface into a very shallow rough-parabola curved concave surface. If we have another near zero/sub zero cold snap I will sprinkle water on that surface to begin creating a highly reflective ice-surface. My hope is to reflect a lot of sunlight off of my home-made ice-mirror through the patio door-window and into my living roomlet. A hopeful attempt at some low-intensity solar home heating.