Winter Solstice… a turn for the better (from the archives 2008)

Well another day and another six inches of snow, but today is different than those other snowy days.

From today forward for the foreseeable future ….or six months (whichever comes first) each day will have more light/sun than the previous one. We made it through the darkest day of the year, and from here it only gets better (or at least birghter). It isn’t hard to understand why people have long celebrated at this time of year.

I was curious to see if the January 1 new year was tied to the solstice and I don’t think it is. The origins actually came from Julius Ceasar who used a common calendar to establish roman authority and to get everyone on a single system. Ceasar named new consuls on the first of January making it a time of new beginnings. The absence of leap years caused the need for periodic corrections which caused confusion when they occurred. This was adressed by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 when he grew frustrated with the scheduling of Easter and got the leap years on a schedule of one every four years. Eastern christian churches chose to follow the older Julian based calendar of Julius Ceasure in scheduling Easter and to this day only occasionally celebrate Easter on the same days as western based christian churches. Funny the things we just follow without thinking about where they came from.

In any case as our economy seems to be headed into dark days with no end in sight the winter solstice is a good reminder that this too shall pass, and brighter days are ahead.

On that note I have put together a few quotes on looking forward. I hope you enjoy them and I hope you enjoy this most festive time of year.

“If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire, then you’ve got a problem. Everything else is inconvenience.” – Robert Fulghum

“For myself I am an optimist – it does not seem to be much use being anything else” – Winston Churchill

“I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.” – Jimmy Dean

“Perhaps our eyes need to be washed by our tears once in a while, so that we can see Life with a clearer view again.” – Alex Tan

“When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.”
– ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL:

“If you will call your troubles experiences, and remember that every experience develops some latent force within you, you will grow vigorous and happy, however adverse your circumstances may seem to be.” – John Heywood

“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” = Winston Churchill

“A pessimist is a man who thinks all women are bad. An optimist is one who hopes they are.”
– Chauncey Depew

“In the long run the pessimist may be proved right, but the optimist has a better time on the trip.”
– Daniel L. Reardon

“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in, forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day, you shall begin it well and serenely…” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

We’ve Holidays and happy days,
and memory days galore
And when we’ve toasted every one,
I offer just one more
So let us lift our glasses high,
and drink a silent toast
To the day, deep buried in each heart
that each one loves the most

“Here’s to the days of good will,
cold weather, and warm hearts.”

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One Response to Winter Solstice… a turn for the better (from the archives 2008)

  1. Beth Kaplan says:

    This is lovely stuff John. Despite my cultural heritage that leads me to be outgoing in most ways, I’m still not too comfortable sharing online with people I don’t know. So, instead, I’ll include a song that sums up my philosophy and is in keeping with the optimism of the quotes you include in your post – especially during these dark, long days. The “you” in the song could be anyone a person chooses I suppose. When my boys were little, PBS played the song as they showed clips from their kid shows, and to me it remains connected with my children. (Sorry – there may be a skip in the middle – only one I could find…)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TH2W7tSGuT0

    The last verse is: “Hope is my philosophy. Just needs days in which to be. Love of life means hope to me. Borne on a new day…” Beth