The Darkest Hour

The darkest hour is not just before the dawn.  It may be a pretty, poetic notion to say so, but anyone who has even a smattering of astronomical knowledge, or is the least bit acquainted with the night, will recognize it as preposterous.  The darkest hour is exactly halfway between sunset and sunrise, on that slice of Earth which is facing directly away from the sun.  It takes half a night to get so deeply into darkness, and another half a night to get back.

Of course, during the first half of the night, the sky is growing steadily darker, and during the second half, it is growing steadily lighter.  It might be more accurate, then, to say that the darkest hour is just before the resurgence of the light.  That is not only correct, but logical, even to the point of being rather too obvious to bother mentioning.  After all, the very definition of darkest requires everything else, in every direction, to be brighter, if only a little.

I can't help but think that's why we celebrate the hiemal solstice, the calendar's own midnight, the darkest hour of the year (and celebrate it we do, nearly all of us, whether we know it or acknowledge it or not).  On the surface, it seems odd for primitive agricultural societies to have celebrated the beginning of winter.  Of course, there was an element of desperation involved; many solstice festivals contained an entreating or propiatory component, to effect the return of the sun with its life-sustaining light and warmth.  The common folk-belief that "like produces like" accounts for the prevalence of candles, bonfires, and other sources of warm illumination in the imagery and festivities of winter celebrations.  What it doesn't account for is the sheer joy of these celebrations, the hope and goodwill and ebullience that distinguish solstitial traditions from Inti Raymi to Yalda.  The months follwing the winter solstice were the hardest time of the year for our ancestors.  Harvest was over, and hunting was difficult; whatever had been stored away would have to last, and if crops had been poor or the winter weather continued longer than expected, starvation was a very real threat.  Even if there was plenty of food stored away, staying warm was always a challenge.  How could anyone find joy in celebrating the beginning of that?

Of course, it wasn't the hardships of the months to come that they were celebrating at all, but the "return" of the sun.  If the sun at his (or her) most remote chose to continue on further into distant realms, forever forsaking the people, they were surely doomed.  The beginning of winter, the cold and cruel season in which every night is a little shorter than the night before, promised the inevitability of spring, and it was this that inspired such festivity.  It's easier to sit tight through the worst, when you know something better is surely on its way.

The darkest hour is just before the resurgence of the light.  As obvious as that may be, isn't it true that we forget that sometimes during the long dark nights of our own souls?  The moment things are at their very worst is the moment they begin to get better.  And sometimes something ugly and ineffective has to be stripped away to make room for what is beautiful and right.

Winter is here.  Spring is inevitable.  Let's keep our eyes open and watch it come.