Halcyon Days and Long Nights

Calm Seas

The weather has been settled for the last few days, the sea has been calm and the wind scarcely a breeze.

These are the halcyon days, the time of temperate climate around the winter solstice.

Fishing in the quiet dawn

Ovid in his Metamorphoses recorded the myth that Alcyone daughter of Aeolus, god of the winds, married to the mortal Cyex, king of Thessaly, upset Zeus and he caused a storm to drown her husband. Grief stricken, Alcyone, threw herself into the waves to join him. The gods, in compassion, changed them both into blue halcyon birds which flash over the waters. Now we commonly associate the story with the kingfisher, Alcedo atthis named after Alcyone.

But Zeus was not to be thwarted. He decreed that the birds should build their floating nests and lay their eggs in midwinter. Aeolus, master of the winds, ensured a period of gentle zephyrs at this time to help his daughter.

Thus, we have the halcyon days and, indeed it has been so for this week.

Sunrise at the Duddo Stones

The sky was overcast on the solstice day so the sunrise at 0836 hrs.was not spectacular but the setting at the Duddo stones made up for it.

Tonight, we have a full moon and the Ursid meteor shower from the region of Ursa Minor, the Little Bear. The sky is overcast so not much will be visible but the Moon appears between the clouds. We call it the Moon before Yule. The North American peoples call it the Moon of the Long Night, a much more evocative title.

The year is on the turn. The old year is gone. The tree of the month is the Yew. Green and resilient. 

The days will lengthen. Even the cold blast of January cannot stop the feeling that winter is past.