Solstice
We don't talk about the summer solstice but we celebrate the heck out of the winter one. We're heading back in the right direction! It won't be noticeable for a while but this is the worst it's going to get. The only way is up.
Ideally I try to be outside to experience dusk at solstice. I'd like to say sunset but there is rarely a visible sunset. Just grey turning greyer. As it was today. I was at a party and popped out into the garden for a while. It is good to mark the turnings.
At noon yesterday and the day before, when the sun was actually visible, it barely scraped over the tops of the houses. Everyone was struggling to drive. At its highest point in the sky.
I've been talking to so many people recently about the winter, the darkness. Some people say they like winter. They like Christmas, New Year, whatever - but we just put them there to get us through. Because it is objectively horrible! People like the coping mechanisms.
Most people do not like the winter and really we need to be so much better at handling these changes because it's just not natural. Today, there are less than eight hours of official daylight. And even then, it's greylight. In the summer that's more like sixteen hours. That's wild and it's even wilder we're expected to just go around like it makes no difference.
Also, petition to move New Year back to March. There's nothing new about January. Ēostre is where it's at.