Three on Thursday: 12/22/22

I've been struggling to come up with topics to write about this week, so when I stumbled upon three things that are winter solstice-related, I decided that a Three on Thursday post was meant to be. The winter solstice occurred in the Northern Hemisphere yesterday at 4:47 pm Eastern time. Now that this has passed we can celebrate the lengthening of daylight. 

First is this painting entitled The Shortening Winter's Day is Near a Close by Joseph Farquharson (1903). I love the name, the sheep, the pale sun, and the shadows on the snow.

The second thing is a link to the sunrise at Stonehenge. They observe the first sunrise after the exact point of the Solstice, which means this year it's on Thursday 22 December. This happened live at 3:09 am Eastern time this morning, but I sure wasn't getting up at that hour to watch. This article from the British Museum explains that Stonehenge was designed to align with the movements of the sun, with the sarsen stones and smaller bluestones arranged to frame the sunrise at the summer solstice and sunset at the winter solstice. This is kind of incredible to me, considering that this was done around 2500 BC. 

Lastly, here is a link to the BBC World Service's production of The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper. As I write this there are three episodes available, but they will continue daily through December 31st. The Dark Is Rising tells the story of Will Stanton, an ordinary boy who begins to have eerie and magical experiences on his 11th birthday, one snowy December. Will discovers that he belongs to a group of ancient, time-traveling beings called the Old Ones, who are guardians of The Light and must wage an unending battle against the forces of The Dark. The music is by Johnny Flynn who I first became aware of watching The Detectorists, and while I have only listened to two episodes they sound quite interesting with headphones (due to recording in binaural sound). There is something special about having a story about battling the forces of darkness read to you during the dark days of winter. 

(If you like The Dark Is Rising, it's actually the second in a series of five fantasy novels for young adults. My own children were not huge fans, but when I worked in our middle school library, I recommended the books to many of our fantasy readers. We eventually had to order several extra copies of each book because we had so many students clamoring for them.)

Wishing you a wonderful return of the light however you celebrate!