Keeping Vigil for the Solstice Sun

The celebration of Yule is starting early here at Casa de TeamFun. I wanted to share this article I recently found with you all as a result. :)

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by Catherine Harper

There are many stories told at Yule, and perhaps this is inevitable, for winter and darkness breed the weaving of stories. In our house, we have celebrated Yule as Longest Night, and the story of our gathering has become that long, dark night, the fires we keep burning throughout it and the food and revelry that sustain our bodies and spirits. While for myself I have mostly given up on keeping vigil the whole night through, and most of us get at least some sleep, it is still a weary band of revelers who gather in the morning to watch the dark sky turn first grey and then silver and then pink with dawn.

It is not a bad tradition, not at all. But I'm wondering this year if the revels of the night don't dull us a little -- wear us out and weary us so that we hardly see the dawn. I am thinking that while we celebrate Yule mostly in the darkness of the Sun's absence, it is a holiday that celebrates not the darkness, nor even truly the light that we make against darkness, but the night that is finite -- as the season is finite -- and that will end with the rising of the Sun.

The first story I remember knowing about this longest night and its morning is one that until recently I assumed everyone knew. I am not sure exactly where I heard it first -- I seem to remember hearing it at a Society for Creative Anachronism gathering and at a Yule party held at the house that many of us rented together. If I heard it seldom later, I assumed that it was because it had been told too often.

Once upon a time, on the longest night of the year, a young man was sent out of the great hall that was brightly lit and filled with food and song. He was given a horn filled with burning coals in a layer of ash, and set to climb to the top of the highest hill, where the people have piled up a large quantity of dry wood. He was to light this wood and make a bonfire, which would call back the Sun from the darkness in which she was sleeping.

And so the tale went. The young man made his long cold walk, and along his way he met three people on the road, each of them without shelter that night, and desperately poor. In each case he stopped, a little reluctantly, and gave them a coal from his supply, and then hurried on. But when he reached the top of the hill he found that the coals he had left had burnt out, and that he had failed in his task. But it was not the way of the world that his act of mercy should condemn all to live forever in darkness, so the fire lit itself, and the Sun was called back.

Over the years, I wondered a lot about this story. Sometimes I told it to children, but its shape didn't always please me. It seemed too naive a conceit that he believed that by not lighting his single fire he would plunge the world forever into darkness. And I didn't want him to be quite that naive, for he was chosen for this task because he was the most promising of the youths and I did not want to condescend so to the ancestors. Nor did I want to have them live, even in story, in a world where the gods are such accountants or where miracles are so convenient. It is perhaps a fairytale, and yet the brilliance of the bonfire seemed to pass over the glory of the dawn. There is mercy and magic in this world without cheap theatrics. And so the story changed in my telling, bit by bit.

The young man, realizing that his coals were dead, turned out the charcoal and ashes from his horn on the ground, searching among them for a spark from which he could kindle a blaze, but in vain. The ash was grey, the charcoal black, and there was only a memory of warmth with them, which passed swiftly in the chill night air.

And yet then, I wondered, what was the point? He gave his coals away, and didn't light the fire. He sat by the fire all through the night, too proud and too ashamed to go back to his people and admit his failure. And the Sun came up anyway. Was I saying the ritual didn't matter? That his acts were of no importance? That wasn't the story I wanted to tell. What he did was intensely important, for all that the world didn't grant him a simple, easy-to-understand reward or accolade.

But there is magic and reward aplenty in the world, for those who can find them. I wondered how it would be to sit shivering beside a pile of wood through the last hours of a winter's night, unable to light it. Even though the Sun would rise, long before then his people would see the hill, still dark, and know he had failed. I thought of him beginning to curse the people he had helped, blaming them for their own need and his humiliation. And in that, I found my end to the story.

But then, away from the cold of midwinter, he felt in himself a small flame. Not kindled by their hands, but by his. This was not the end he sought, sitting alone on a hill in the dark. But this was the path he had chosen, chosen when he had stopped to help those that were in need. He had thought his help would be easy to give, and would cost him nothing more than a minute or two that he could quickly regain with his long legs. But if he had known the cost, would he have chosen otherwise?

Would it have been better to make another choice?

Far off in the East, the stars were fading, the sky barely, almost imperceptibly lightening. He sat there on the hilltop, watching the sky brighten into dawn. There is, he knew then, mercy in the world. And it came to him that he was part of it.

He was chosen because he was the swiftest, but he walked back slowly that winter morning. He came back a humbler man, and a wiser one, wondering how he would tell this strange story, for he had failed, and yet that failure had become a gift to him.

At Yule, we gather and make light for ourselves and celebrate with feast and song, for this is the longest, darkest night, and we are still alive and have the courage to sing against the dark. It is easy to gloss over the long dark of winter these days, and yet even for those of us who love the night I think it is important to acknowledge the power the night and winter hold.

Do you think that as a pagan, with a chest full of candles, you are well-prepared for darkness? Try going a few days without artificial light. Candles are wonderful to eat and converse by, but even fairly bright oil lamps leave a lot to be desired when it comes to reading, washing dishes, finding one's glasses or other more detailed work. We have sometimes lost power for several days, always in the winter. Even though we are well-equipped with lamps and our wood-burning stove and oven, after a few days I find myself wishing the Sun would set later and spare us a little longer from the oppression of darkness. And yet we do not feel winter in our bones the way many of our ancestors must have.

But even if the tangible cold and darkness of winter are mostly metaphors for us, in each of our lives there are winters, and long nights, and periods of darkness. Yule is about surviving. Sometimes it is about singing against the dark, sometimes it is about the light that we make for ourselves. Sometimes it's about clenching your teeth and sitting the long night with your failures. But more than anything, Yule is about seasons and turnings and changes. If we survive the night -- and most of us do, most of the time, even if none of us will forever -- there will always be dawn, and a new day.

TeamFun goes to Aruba, week 2

Sun. Sept. 21- We headed to the Ostrich farm for their Brunch that Giselle recommended. It's a good deal, however we asked no questions about it, and were disappointed to learn there's no ostrich served. So we ordered some sashimi.















After we ate we hung out a bit with Giselle and Glenn again, and Glenn was so sweet, he took us out to the farm so I coul dsit on an ostrich! LOL I was soooo looking forward to it, so we got to do it without taking the tour! :) Yay!













After brunch we headed to Champions to catch the New England game. On the way there I was totally click happy in the passenger seat. Here's a few:





































So, right, back to the story. The game was so pathetic we left at halftime. OMG there was this commercial that would play on every commercial break, and it was the only one that played, and it drove all of us nuts! So much so that I HAD to take a picture of it, LOL!














As we were leaving we came across the biggest iguana we saw all week:















We headed to the open market, and there we picked up the painting we saw last week and decided we definitely wanted. Got a good price on it. Headed back to the room to drop off our booty and headed back downtown for a light dinner at the Paddock. I have really missed this place since coming home. :(

I have emailed them asking for their recipe for their fish soup, but I don't expect it. I'm sure they'll get a good laugh over the request LOL.


Afterward we walked around downtown. It's a bit surreal walking around Oranjestad on Sundays. It's so quiet.































As the sun was about to set, we scouted out a place to watch it, even though it was cloudy. Found a sweet spot out on some rocks at the water.



























I love this spot, it reminds me of Maine.. a bit of Maine in Aruba :)

























Afterward we headed back to the Paddock for a double espresso and split a pistachio gellato from a place near the Paddock. :)




























Fat and blissfully happy, we headed back to the room to watch a game and chillout. My knee was super swollen and all my arthritis was kicking- I think it was the 16,000 Balashis I drank on Friday. Got some reading done too, a great book I picked up at the ABC's member swap library- "The Wheel of Darkness".

Monday 9/22 - This is a very special day for me. For us. I love to celebrate the anniversary of when Mike proposed. Tradition is we go out to a great dinner. Well other fun got in the way so we didn't get our nice meal until Wed- The Old Man and the Sea resto- but hey, we caught the sunrise :) Yay!! The picture at the top of ths particular blog is from that morning. We have SO many gorgeous pics from that sunrise that I made an album soley for it on webshots, so you can see them all here: http://good-times.webshots.com/album/567945978HENjRd?vhost=good-times However I have uploaded an Awesome video of it here, but the formatting is a pain so it's at the very bottom of this blog. Here's a pic to tide you over














We rode out to the lighthouse area to catch this sunrise. We did some off roading for a few hours afterward, then headed back to the hotel to get breakfast, which we ate at Tortuga resto (I had eggs Benedict, Mike got a waffle, everything was superbly delish!), and we packed up a cooler
complete with tequila and oj, and headed back out to go 4wheeling on the North side for the rest of the day.
We had a blast.... but the Jeep was making very unusual and alarming noises after a while so we cut it a little short (only by an hour or so). We took another 16 thousand pics.


Oh and we stopped by the Alta Vista chapel, where we met a nice couple (Cubs Fans)(teehee).
We recommended the Savannah lodge bar at the Ostrich farm, found out they went, asked for Giselle and had a fantastic time. :) Yay!








On our travels we came across this firepit setup, like in the middle of 'nowhere'. I had the feeling it was set up for an earth based type of celebration ritual but that's just my gut feeling. Who knows. It was cool though.















And then this place, do you think anyone ever lived here?














Check this out, can you see the swimmer? What a perfect swimming spot to call your own. Bet there's some awesome snorkeling there, too.

Nice view while offroading, yes? Oh my, let me tell you, these pictures do no justice for just how much you need 4wheel drive and lots of clearance. Can't imagine going back to Aruba and NOT getting a Wrangler again.
















Hey, see the goats?



















We came across this place, got lots of good pics while we hung around at this spot.














Take for instance this cool shot. I like the rocks at this beach, reminds me of Jasper Beach in downeast Maine. (I feel like that tootsie roll commercial, "whatever it is I think I see, becomes Maine to me!" haha....














Alright I think I'll ease up on the offroading pics for now, especially since we spent a whole other day doing this, so there's more to come anyway LOL. Making our way back, we accidentally found Veradero again! LOL Here's a pic, this time it was daytime. And, we were able to determine that it is near the old airport (well, old and new are next to each other...) Oh and check this out, we drove past Joe, the guy we bought the painting from, near Veradero (we were driving around, checking out the neighborhoods, and life and such). He had his family with him or we'd have gotten a beer (or 2 or 3) together. Nice guy. :)


We had dinner that night at Jamaica Me Crazy, the jerk chicken and red beans & rice. SOOOO GOOOD!! I wish we had something like this at home. By the time we got there, I was feeling PRETTY good. LOL can you tell by this pic of Danny and I? I had to post the funny one of Danny, making silly pose. And we had a nice long conversation with the woman who works there, but darn it we can't remember her name for the life of us! BOOO. We bought her a drink, she was delighted! teeheee...

















We went back to hotel to shower and clean up, then back out to meet Danny at Mombas, I think that's what it's called. It is a nightclub right downtown. Totally NOT our scene, the music was stupid loud, there was not even a crowd to warrant the volume level in anyway. But we met some of Danny's friends and had great (sreaming) conversations LOL. he has some very interesting and intelligent friends with wide variety of interests. Hotdamn did I mention I love the people of Aruba? LOL :) We then headed to the casino, where for the first time ever, Mike won pretty big at blackjack, in like half hour's time. Not big big, but big for us. LOL.
Called it kind of an early night. A day four wheeling in the desert with the top down will really take it out of ya!



Tuesday Sept 23. Beach Day!!! Carbo even joined us today. Here he is, watching the far off (at that point) approaching storm.














It was an AWESOME DAY. For many reasons, one unexpected completely. But I'll get to that. There was a storm that approached from the horizon. See the tradewinds reliably blow from like northeast to southwest-ish. This day they were opposite, and we could see the storm approaching. We guessed 5 minutes until pourdown at one point, so we stashed our belongings under the palapa and headed to the bar for lunch (perfect timing, it was noon, and happy hour #1 of the day is noon to 1). We were right. 5 min later it POURED, lightening like crazy, insane winds. 40 minutes later it was completely dry and sunny. LOVE IT. The waves all day were NUTS! We went in for about 10 minutes, I was okay but suddenly felt panicky and high-tailed it out, LOL. I have been reading too many books based on tragedy at sea with drownings and near drownings and such. Wonderful to hear those waves crashing though. Check out the video of the kid surf boarding, this was the best one, we saw that group of kids probably 3 different days.
While we were at lunch barely under cover at the pool bar (it's not 'in' the pool, right next to it rather) as the stormed passed, this guy Ed struck up a conversation with me. He's a tattoo shop owner from NH- Ed's Heritage Tattoo. He gave me all sorts of excellent advice for persuing my goal of becoming a tattoo artist. He gave me frank, upfront, no bs advice. It was SUCH a blessing. I've acted on his advice already and I am very happy about it all. I mean I've gotten lots of advice before, but you know what the big difference is? Everyone else said "Do XYandZ, even though I didn't." What kind of advice is that, ya know? Anyway. It was a huge blessing.

That night Ludo and Giselle treated us to dinner. They wanted to know what we wanted to eat, we said "Local!!" and so they took us to their favorite Chinese resto. Which is funny. But Ludo explained that they cook with a more Indonesian flair and, as they cook for mostly Dutch people, it's also got a heavy Dutch flair. Ludo ordered for us all. It was all DELISH.


One thing that stands out in particular was the peanut sauce for the chicken on a stick.... oh. my. WORD. Never have tasted a better peanut sauce.









Afterward we went to Pink Flamingo. Lang was working again. As usual, Giselle and I sat at the bar and kabitzed and went thru Old Par after Old Par (a whiskey brewed on the island), while Mike and Ludo and others drank beers and played pool. Lang is a great guy, he even asked about us the next time they were in, even though Lang speaks not a word of English! teehee! While we were there, a friend of Giselle's popped in, Peter Paul. He's a family Dr. on the island. He invited us to his house on Thursday for a cookout. He's got a house on his own private beach in Savaneta.












Wed. Sept 24th- Sunshiney beach day, Yay!!!!
Here's us, doing our Beach and Balashi thing, lol...














And here's a video I took to take me back to that day whenever I need to retreat.



That night we headed to Old Man and the Sea for dinner. I told them when I made the reservation that it was our anniversary. We had reservations originally for Monday, which IS an anniversary we celebrate with verve every year. When they found it what exactly it was we were celebrating we got lots of 'aawweees and ohhhh isn't that sweeeeeet' comments, LOL. Yes, yes it is. We love it. I love celebrating our marriage. :) Anywayz, the restaurant. OH. MY. GOODNESS. From the moment you walk in, you feel pampered.
We got there early, as we expected the place to be nice and wanted to soak in the atmosphere. We figured we'd be sitting at a bar, but they have this wooonnnderful lounge area.


I personally could have just sat there all night and drank champagne and been blissfully happy.












There is a ton of privacy between the 2 seaters on the water, thanks to wonderful, perfectly placed foilage. The tiki torches they lite did a wonderful job getting rid of the bugs. The view spectacular, the service was slow, but they worked as a true team and the one waiter did say that evening was the busyiest they have had since they opened. We didn't care, I told him to just keep the champagne coming... LOL we went thru 2 bottles.
Check this out, the nicest table for 4 I have ever seen in my life:

Here's a pic of us finishing up our 2nd bottle LOL
Three cheers for timer delay ;-)
OK Honestly I could post ALL the pics from this restaurant but I'll stop there, haha. We had this shrimp bruchetta type appetizer, a bowl of fish soup (it's better at the Paddock haha), and we both got grouper. I got the macadamia encrusted and Mike got....... yep I still can't remember. Both were good. We ordered desert, too, a rarity. It was a type of flan and it was out of this world.





Thurs Sept 25. We went four wheeling allll day, up until our plans to meet at Peter Paul's house in Savaneta for the cookout at 4pm. We went to the Natural pool and I'm so glad I did. Yeah it was crowded but it really is pretty awesome. Oh and perhaps you've heard that you NEED a 4 wheel drive vehicle to get there? That is no exaggeration. It was hairy at a few places.

We struck up a conversation with a tour guide there, he was giving us lots of pointers, we shared many laughs, and when done I said "Masha Danke, Dushi" and he did a double take and smiled and said "Where'd you learn that?!" I said Giselle and that's when he told us he was her neighbor. Small word, small island!




Here's a cool pic of the landscape scenery down by the natural pool.















When we left, we just drove all around, trying to find an alternate way from where we came from to get to the natural pool. Our next stop we wanted to be Boca Prins, and hence the bar there ;-) Well. We drove all over. And it was HOT. And we came upon a few dead ends. We were totally stoked when we came across this:














Only it ended in a road block saying road closed due to construction!! There was no signs of anything going on. :( boooo

I don't remember where or how but someway we found our way out, YAY! I could see the Balashi plant in the distance, so we knew we'd not have a problem finding our way to Peter Paul's house, too. We were so thristy and drained. Lo and behold,














Mike said "What is this place?" To which I answered: "Don't know, but they're open and I bet they have Balashi!" I was right YAY! Not only that, but a little shop with original (extremely well priced and very nice) artwork, even the tshirts! And the artists were the family who lived there and ran the place, the grandmother, who we met, and her daughter who we spoke with at length about politics here and on the island, life in general, and get this- she loves Maine!! What are the odds? She says her heart is there (Oh I was wearing an Acadia hat, which prompted her to ask about it). I can't remember her name!! It's driving me nuts. The grandma is Dora. Here's Dora with her daughter and the oldest son:

They were SUCH warm people. If we didn't have plans we would have stayed there another hour. She has fresh coconuts you can drink with a straw there, so stop by! LOL Oh and she offered us some of her home made brocolli soup, we just had a tasting of it since we were heading to a cookout. MAN it was good. She showed us the herb she grows and cooks with a lot, it was soft, smelled kinda like basil only different, and was a brighter green. Can't remember the name of it.



So off to Peter Pauls. We went to Zeerovers since he lives a few houses up from it, and that's where we were to meet Giselle and Ludo. We were feeling really chill, but not as chill as the puppy there.... haha...












Peter Paul's place was the BOMB. Here's some pics of the patio, and the beach, and pier.









Mike and PeterPaul totally bonded over garlic and fish filets, LOL. They did the cooking. Here's the fire on the beach our fish was cooked on.














We all went swimming for an hour or so, watched the sunset,
had a good meal and then some drinks and lots of laughs. We could not believe our luck at meeting not only such super cool people, but a Dr. with a fat pad who wanted us to join him and friends for a cookout. OMG are you kidding me??? Sooo Sweeeeeet....













So afterwards the four of us hit Lang's place, the Flamingo. LOL :) I finally got a pic of Lang! Yay!!
















Friday was a beach day. It was, by far without a doubt, the hottest day of our vacation. Water was perfect. Giselle joined us for our beach day. :) We had pizza bob's for lunch (had to, we love it!!) LOL We packed after the beach, cleaned up and met Giselle and Ludo at Zeerovers for one last hangout. I tried the souce (sp?)- it is a pork ceviche, a very typical Caribbean food, so they told me. I saw tables of people eating it. OH MY it was SOOO nasty! I could not finish even half of it. Unfortunately, I was feeling extremely rundown. I could not hang. Everyone wanted to go to Lang's place, but I mean I was not even on fumes, I was completely empty. :( So we said farewell. It sucks!!!

The next morning all went well in our car return and airport stuff. A delay at our stopover in Miami, where I met up with an old coworker who Mike and I befriended, Bill. Had not seen him in like 3 years. He was boarding the same plane, how cool!

OH didn't tell about the Jeep ordeal. We called Ricky the morning after our 1st Jeep started making crazy noises. He brought a replacement Jeep up. So from the time I called to the time he left the ABC parking lot, leaving us with an even better Jeep, was about an hour. Top notch service!!

Well, that's it folks. I hope you felt like you just had a mini vacation. I wanted to get all I could in, so that I can take myself back in the middle of any given stressful, or boring, workday. :)

Next year, we have our sights on Ireland........