And now winter begins. I should feel bleak today. I should be thinking of death, the dead, but I don’t. I think of the bulbs below ground and the buds on the trees in just a few months (well, four or five months but let’s not quibble). My attempt at positivity. At believing that this is a day of rebirth instead of one of darkness. I need to hook into my Celtic roots and feel this.

I need to celebrate.

I didn’t take me long to find this web site with a bunch of cool solstice info (by the way, I should note that Summer Solstice is my favorite day of the year). Here’s my favorite bit:

You may have heard of apple wassailing, the medieval winter festival custom of blessing the apple trees with songs, dances, decorations and a drink of cider to ensure their fertility. Here’s another, more obscure tradition that most certainly predates Christmas, and was probably once a solstice ritual, because it is so linked to the themes of nature’s rebirth and fertility. In Romania, there’s a traditional Christmas confection called a turta. It is made of many layers of pastry dough, filled with melted sugar or honey, ground walnuts, or hemp seed. In this tradition, with the making of the cake families enact a lovely little ceremony to assure the fruitfulness of their orchard come spring. When the wife is in the midst of kneading the dough, she follows her husband into the wintry garden. The man goes from barren tree to tree, threatening to cut each one down. Each time, the wife urges that he spare the tree by saying:

“Oh no, I am sure that this tree will be as heavy with fruit next spring as my fingers are with dough this day.”

Happy solstice, everyone.