Tracy Cochran

This is the still time. The Winter Solstice has just passed. In the Northern Hemisphere, this marks the shortest day and the longest night. 

The word solstice is derived from two Latin words–”sol,” meaning sun, and “sistere,” meaning to make stand. For three days around the solstice, it is believed that we can experience the sun and the earth seeming to stand still. In the North, where I live, the sun stays low to the horizon all day, and sets in the late afternoon. It feels as if nature is calling us to do the same, to stay low to the ground, to turn inward, to notice the life inside. Soon, a shift will appear again, towards more light, more activity. But now, a pause.

The “Christmas Truce” was actually a series of unofficial ceasefires all along the Western Front of the First World War around Christmas of 1914. French, German, and British troops would stop fighting, sometimes to jointly bury their dead, sometimes to talk and exchange gifts, to sing together and play. Sometimes soldiers would write home that an uncanny stillness just descended for a time.

Peace. 

If you are around tomorrow evening, Christmas Eve, please join me. We will be still together. Along with people and creatures and the earth and sun, we will pause and practice peace.