Song of Winter Solstice

Having passed through the immense darkness of December, winter solstice sings to me of such hopeful anticipation. The metaphor of the triumph of light over darkness is a melody that deepens with each phrase, harmonies of some distant realm flow in cascading counterpoint. 

It begins so simply. I leave my office. The day has been a bright, pristine winter day. I have sought the presence of friends on the Internet, but everyone is away, engaged in the last minute hysteria of Christmas Eve in the midst of so much unfinished business that needs attention and the last minute shopping forays to stores rushing to close in early afternoon. 

Night has descended unannounced, and I walk along Washington Place toward the park. Church bells chime from the north and others echo somewhere to the south. From a distance, I hear carolers singing "Fast away the old year passes..." and the air seems filled with singing. The singing originates from the brightly lit Christmas Tree framed by the Washington Square Arch. Their singing echoes against the surrounding buildings, and the texture blends with the city sounds, the music of New York settling into the night before Christmas.

 Everything seems so magical in the moment. I wonder if I really exist, or if I am just some character walking in Washington Square in an O. Henry short Christmas story. Maybe I dwell in this moment as part of the Gift of the Magi. That would be just like O. Henry: to have me discover at the end that I am really just a character in one of his stories. 

I turn the corner and head toward Bobst Library as the music resonates and resounds around me and within my mind. It is the song of solstice. Music becomes the source of light and I see the music in some fantastic array of media celebrating the consciousness of awareness that we are the witness of life and the universe. 

It is media unlike anything I have ever known... vibrations articulating reality oscillating and forever pulsating with the stuff of life. Music is light shining and Light is the radiance of all sound, of all music. We are the pulsing awareness of our defining source. 

We are the substance and light of the universe. We are the light that translates the darkness, the sound that interprets the silence. 

That is the song of solstice. 

We are the Song of Winter Solstice.