Cards by Kaitlin

09/01/2024

12/22/2023

Happy Winter Solstice
The first day of winter has arrived

The winter solstice is the day with the fewest hours of sunlight via the whole year. So this also makes it the “shortest day” of the year. Thankfully, after we reach the winter solstice, the days begin to grow longer and longer once again until we reach the summer solstice—the first day of summer and the longest day of the year.

Although the winter solstice means the start of winter, it also means the return of more sunlight. It only gets brighter from here!

The word solstice comes from Latin sol “sun” and sistere “to stand still.” So, loosely translated, it means “sun stand still.”

The solstice has been celebrated through much folklore since ancient times by many cultures around our planet.

“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”
Poem by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it q***r
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Source: Ancient Origins
Image: Happy Solstice

11/25/2023

“We need to teach the children the old words,
words like brabble and grubble,
twitter-light and clinkerbell;
words which dance and trip and slip
and drip like honey off the tongue

Teach them that a hazy halo of cloud
around the moon is called a moonbroch
and that swiftly moving clouds are named
cairies;
how a vixen’s wedding is a sunny shower of
rain, and that a single sunbeam breaking through thick cloud is known as a messenger

Teach them to know the seasons and scents
of queen of the meadow and bride of the sun,
how to tell Jupiter’s staff from fairy fingers
and which roses bloom with the strawberry moon

Teach them to spot pricklebacks in the tottlegrass,
how to recognise a smeuse or a bishop-barnaby,
when to watch the sky for flittermice and yaffles,
and to pay attention to the dumbeldore and mousearnickle
as she graces the lazy leahs of summer

Teach them a few of the old Sussex words for mud,
like gubber and slub and stodge and pug,
so they know that the precious soil beneath their toes
is anything but worthless dirt

Teach them to be users and keepers and makers
of the words which bring the land alive:
a storybook, where everything has its rightful place, including us;
where the wilds are fearful and filled with magic
and people do noble things, and nothing is impossible

In this world of harsh new words —
words like planetary dysmorphia and solastalgia,
extinction debt and grief mitigation,
megadrought and megafire,
anthropogenic, pyrocene,
words which alarm and get stuck in our throats
describing a world which our hearts cannot grasp —
we need to teach the children the old words,
so that if they should feel lost,
the old words might colour for them
a warm and breathing, living map,
a light to guide them safely home.”

~ Caroline Mellor

Art: Jim Colorex aka Emmanuel Fallet

11/18/2023

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11/14/2023

🤔🎄✔️🤣