Winter Solstice

Poems, Rituals & Community-Building

Dear Readers,

I’ve been planning for some time to write about the solstice—and lo and behold, how time has flown!

I realized after mourning the loss, amidst laundry and lego, of a moment in which to pen something fresh and new, that what I’d really like to share with you has already been written.

I spent much time last autumn putting together poems for a collection meant to be used as a sort of “portal to ritual” for a group of people gathered—or an individual in contemplation—to guide reflection on and celebration of the longest night.

So as this shortest day closes, I’d like to share with you from Portals of Light. Here I’m including the preface and one poem, along with an audio version of me reading** that poem. If these help ground you in the seasonal moment, my heart is made glad!

May you find peace, solace, and good company here and all winter long.

With gratitude,

MERKAT

*If you’d like your own copy of this hand-illustrated, hand-made (no robots!) book full of original poems for the season (also makes a great Christmas gift!) reach me directly [button below!], or swing by Reader’s Nook if you’re lucky enough to be local to this patch of the Great Lakes watershed!).

And yes: I am always Pay-What-You-Can and/or barter!

**I’m including me reading the poem because I often use my poems in performance, and some, like this one, are intended to be shared communally. I’m doing this despite my hesitations around rampant, non-consentual AI-training across the ‘net. I’m also including my reading as a reminder that indeed, humans still read things aloud, and in fact, many of us use our voices publicly as voice-over artists, on the radio, (I do both and love it) and more—and in other wasy-- and more and more often, these real human voices are being traded for amalgam AI voices; technology that will do the work “for free” (—not free, on a whole bunch of environmental, social, and cultural levels, but you get it). Anyschmayz…yeah, so—this is me, reading a poem I wrote with my brain and hands. Thanks!

I finally had an excuse to create an inner vellum sheaf! Bucket list!

Portals of Light: Preface

Contemporary Poems, Ancient Rituals and Community-Building

As a kid, my parents threw elaborate holiday parties. Elaborate in the way old tapestries are elaborate: colourful, imperfect, threads upon threads both unraveling and in place at the same time. You could pull one string, and the entire thing would begin to come apart. But soon the unraveling would cease--the single errant thread snagged in a tangle of all the others; the tapestry changed, but intact. And in fact, that’s community--writ large, writ small--writ very small, indeed; tiny and magical, like the hands of a newborn child.

Once in a while at these parties my uncle would recite a poem. There were always several last-minute strangers (someone’s cousin’s brother’s phlebotomist; or a professor emeritus in shamanic capitalism at Yale; or the town’s new undertaker/craft brewery operator, Myrna) at our gatherings, and sometimes one of them had something delightful--a story, a song--hidden up a sleeve, ready to share.

And there was the poetry of the event itself, my parents, free-range parents before free-range was a thing; unsupervised everyone everywhere; the house, full of people on couches, in crooks and crannies, talking and laughing and often, meeting for the very first time.

When my parents passed, people spoke of their unending generosity of spirit, of the way these once-strangers always knew they were welcome at my parents’ home, how, no matter the day or time, they would be greeted with coffee and implored to take a seat at the kitchen table to talk until the cows came home (or in their case, the dogs returned from their midnight deer chase).

Hospitality is its own ancient ritual, a giving way that is becoming more and more rare, despite its significance as a necessary building block for community. Similarly, stationed behind a desk as I am now, typing this, we human animals risk further separation from the natural world and its seasonal transitions, alongside the cultural traditions that celebrate those moments of change.

And these cultural traditions, like hospitality, are necessary for the health of our communities. And healthy communities grow healthy children, and healthy children make for healthy futures, and possibility, and collaboration, and--dare I say it--inner peace, even world peace.

So this little book of poems was written to honour that most glorious of times: the Winter Solstice. Drawing from ancient traditions and written for a contemporary audience, these poems can be read in community, where folks are gathered together to celebrate the season; and also in solitude, where contemplation of nature’s movement from dark to light can be deeply grounding and comforting.

In the grand tapestry of being, may you revel in the wild unravelling--and in the gentle putting-back-together. In dark times, may you recognize night’s magic, just as the light realizes herself to humanity over and again, without fail, as she always does.

With gratitude,

Meredith K. Hoogendam

Winter Solstice, 2024

From Portals of Light

Together We Gather

a communal poem for Winter Solstice (can be read as part of a solstice gathering)

Hear the poem:

In summer, you thrust your bare hands deep into the green Earth, dark matter--to the wrists you bury them, and all sultry season long your skin smells of hot life: of tobacco and stone, bright moss, pure light.

In autumn, surrounded by scarlet sumac you heap leaves in mounds of burnished umber, breathe and heave your body aloft without thought for landing. From the ground, every branch above you burns vermillion. Even your heart is made of kindling.

And now here we are, the longest dark.

The sky is molasses and your breath is silver. Soon, dusk and dawn entwine like lovers until all our hours are but a single gentle croon, a soft, diaphanous longing. We clad our bodies in wool and leather like dried lavender and night is one slow song, one long-drawn dark nocturne.

And now, a candle to scatter the shadow!

Here, a honeyed light to lure the sun, plead her homeward. On this, the longest night, we transform, become lanterns: a murmur-swoon-glow aloft waves of deep darkness. Mingled, lone flames form fire, one bright blaze to sing the body celestial; the consuming, transmuting burn that, even hidden, unfurls roots, births branches, succors sap. This flame, even sleeping always living; ever returning.

And so, though the dark is long and furrowed deep, light sings out from the marrow of our bones, our branches. We are living kindling.

We gather together to wake the flame from slumber, to call forth fire from night.

Together we gather to release the light!

FODDER

If you care about the Great Lakes, please read this new little piece from watershed advocate Jeffrey Insko “Oil is not Energy.” From The Current, here on Substack!

Oil Is Not Energy

MY ART/EVENTS

More to say in 2025!

In the meantime, more shameless plugging of poetry!

“Portals of Light is a series of poems written to honour the winter solstice; they celebrate connection and community and the passing of the “longest dark” as the year slowly turns on its axis towards the longest day. Beautifully designed and illustrated, Hoogendam’s collection of poems is a book to cherish.”

Felicity Sidnell-Reid, author of The Many Faces, The Yellow Magnolia, and Alone: A Winter in the Woods

“In Portals of Light, Meredith K. Hoogendam celebrates the winter solstice and anticipates the light in her unique poetic voice. She conjures sound: after so long shouting / the wind mimes silence (“The Longest Dark”). And she gives us phrases to hold as we enter the longest night: moonblind fingers and dreams like acorns to plant (“Wheel of the Year”). Magic is about to take flight. “Return of the Light,” the final poem, shifts in tone and we cannot help but chant the words as we all bend toward the light.”

Kathryn MacDonald, author of Far Side of the Shadow Moon and A Breeze You Whisper

As always, with gratitude,

MERKAT