As soon as we pass the longest night of the year, there is a noticeable change in the quality of light. The afternoons immediately seem brighter as the days begin to lengthen, minute by minute, week by week. I can remember more than a few winter solstices that found me mired in a darkness that was soul-black and heavy. But this year, as the world, at home and afar, is facing so many serious threats, it feels essential to remain focused on what needs to be addressed—war, climate change, increasing polarization, a pandemic that is still causing illness and disability, and so much more. Heaven knows there is much to worry about, many reasons to be angry, ample cause for despair, but, at the moment, as someone who has known deep depression borne of chemistry rather than circumstance, what I tend to feel is a positive anger, that is, an emotion that fuels a desire to be more active in my speech and action as the new solar season dawns. There is an opening up to the other that, after years of relative isolation, has been reignited in me in recent months and I hope I can keep that energy in motion.
This past year was one of connection and reconnection. In mid-September I returned to India for the first time in four years—my first trip anywhere since 2019. As I made my way from Bangalore to Calcutta, Delhi, Pune, Mumbai, Jaipur and back to Bangalore, I enjoyed so many long and meaningful conversations over coffee and meals, and in cars, autos and trains, with friends old and new. I was looking for the inspiration and confidence to write again after a prolonged period of silence, and by the time I was getting ready to fly home I was beginning to feel a renewed creative drive. And then, the outbreak of conflict in the Middle East diverted my attention, shifted my reading, left me distressed and found me treading words with caution, shocked by the ability of apparently reasonable people to rationalize the massive destruction of infrastructure and indiscriminate killing of innocent children, women and men that we have witnessed these past two and a half months. Even now I know that whatever I say or don’t say, someone will take offense. This is the deeply fractured world we now inhabit.
Here in the northern hemisphere, the days grow longer as a new calendar year approaches; in the south, summer solstice marks the longest day of the year. What will we do with this light, that we either presently have or are eagerly anticipating? There is no condition—conflict, climate or clinical—that we cannot resolve, but, as human beings, we have to be able to do the one thing that seems to drive us apart over and over again: we have to recognize that every person is of equal value and deserving of dignity and life and commit to working together toward that end.
I will let you decide for yourself if that is a dream worth holding on to or justification for accepting that our problems are impossible to solve.
Photo by Joseph Schreiber
roughghosts 
Thank you for expressing what I think many of us are feeling Joseph. I hope there is more light in more ways than one in 2024.
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Thank you. Wishing you the best for the new year.
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Trusting your days get brighter Joseph, here we have just (about three hours ago) celebrated the Summer Solstice!! Things get darker on this side 🤔. Take care, all my love – Tony
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All my very best to you too, Tony. Savour the long days while they last (not that you’ve been sitting still too much these days).
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Thanks for the hopeful thoughts at the close of what has surely been a trying year, Joe. Best wishes for your creative stirrings to continue and blossom into 2024.
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Thank you, Sean. I wish the same for you.
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You put it very well Joe, and if we lose hope that we can change the world for the better, we may as well give up completely. Best wishes for the festive period to you and your family. x
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Thanks, Karen. It’s more important than ever to hold on to hope. Best wishes to you and your family too.
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It is, indeed, a fractured world we live in. But even so, I am grateful to be here, making what small difference I can in my own life and the lives of others. Solstice to solstice, may you and your family be blessed with health and contentment in the midst of it all.
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Thank you, Jay. wishing you and your family warmth and joy through the holidays and on into 2024.
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Beautifully said, Joe. As long as there is light there is hope. It is terribly hard to hold all these conflicting feelings within us, and even harder to say them out loud. Thank you for saying what you’re feeling. Best wishes to you. May the chinks, those little wounds, in our souls be the parts through which the light can seep in.
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Thank you. Wishing you all the very best too. 🙂
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Beautifully expressed as always. The light does shift and expand and, in a literal sense, I’ve noticed that the sunset is offering one additional minute of daylight each day even now, so soon after the actual turn. In about one week it will be light until 5pm! Best to you and yours, now and in the ever-longer days to come in 2024.
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Best wishes for 2024 to you too. The only regret I have with respect to the sun is that it gradually shifts to the north and the picture perfect vantage point I currently have from my apartment will be blocked by the building next door!
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