Social media recently surprised me with old photos of me in front of kindergartners at a local school, telling them about the winter solstice.

If you love to tell stories, as I do, you gotta love how transfixed five year olds are when you move into a bit of a singsong chant about how it gets dark when we go to sleep, and the sun goes to sleep too, every night, and then in the morning we wake up (happy hands shoot up here), just like the sun does every morning. In the winter, the sun needs more rest, so it rests in the dark for longer and longer nights.

And then comes the solstice!

Hooray, the sun is waking up and lighting the sky with longer days. Then we remember lots of stories that people have told for hundreds and hundreds of years, like the Oak King and the Holly King, and St. Nicholas’ visit, and other such. Turns out that this school has some kind of educational relationship with NASA (the U.S. National Aeronautic and Space Administration), so these children were all excited to talk to me about planets, the sun, the moon and their movement through the sky. One child raised his hand to ask in a mysterious voice, “But who made the sun?” Another little boy quickly replied, “No one!” Returning to the first child’s question, I replied, also in a mysterious voice, “Who can know these things? It is a Mystery.”

The Winter Solstice is a special time in our house for non-religious reasons, as well as the obvious Pagan traditions.

Both my husband and myself have birthdays the same week, and just the other day we celebrated our wedding anniversary. A bit of Christmas gathering with loved ones makes the season bright for us, even though there is more darkness outside. Like the seasons, however, it took many years for us to find our balance amidst the holiday expectations of others, especially when combined with our own less than happy family holiday pasts.

Looking back, I realize that we needed to rest ourselves in the long cycles of the cosmos, allowing the dark to absorb pain and nurture new roots. If you struggle with the season, as so many do and I have done, watch the skies as a model of patience, endurance and hope.

And if this is for you the “most wonderful time of the year,” I wish you many happy returns of this mysterious turn of the wheel.

Holli S. Emore, M.Div
Executive Director

Fireworks, footlongs, baseball and the beach are the usual order of the day on the U.S. Independence Day holiday. Our philharmonic here in S.C. will accompany lakeside festivities with the usual 1812 Overture, complete with cannon fire. And many will contemplate the years they served in uniform, or supported someone who did. Being in the Bible Belt, no doubt some will pray for our country and sing patriotic hymns. The predominant emotions, though, will be enjoyment of a long weekend and cookouts with friends.

Cherry Hill Seminary serves students and includes faculty from a number of countries, but we acknowledge our American residency, roots and culture by reflecting on what spiritual messages we might glean from July 4th. The U.S. certainly has much to be proud of. There is also more than enough shame to go around. Americans (and many Pagans, I might add) have often been brash, self-absorbed, and obsessed with the idea of independence—whether national or personal—as rivaling the common good for supremacy.

Being so recently transplanted from other shores, most of our ancestors might have cautioned us that liberty is a rare flower which only thrives in the right conditions, with a time of bloom that can be shorter than we anticipated. Our indigenous – First Nations friends can certainly attest to that truth. I happen to love flowers and go to some trouble to keep my yard blooming most times of the year. I know all too well that neglect or just hoping for a good outcome are not enough to ensure a colorful display in my garden.

Gardening wears me out and leaves me aching; so does the work of being a citizen in my country. It is not enough for me to only read the news I want to see, hope the local zoning and water commissions will issue permits that are good for the land as well as the community, or substitute clicktivism on social media for actually trying to understand issues and make an impact myself. At the time that I write, it is looking as if negligence may have caused the deaths of at least 150 people at a collapsed condo in Florida. The final crash of concrete happened quickly, but the signs were there several years ago. Likewise, our neglect of healthy community can begin to crack the foundations of democracy.

This weekend may we enjoy some long overdue fun, including the hotdogs. But let’s also pause to contemplate the work—the burden, if you will—of enjoying a way of life that few in history have known. Ask your gods, consult your preferred divination, and discuss with your intimates, how to make our world a kinder, stronger, safer place. Commit to the ongoing burden of liberty, and look forward to more beautiful seasons of its flowering.

Holli S. Emore, M.Div
Executive Director