Finally! I have a moment to post about Seasons Round Exchange {Light}. My swap partner this time was Chris of mamaroots. She did not disappoint! Be sure and visit her Etsy store--everything is lovingly made from natural, child-friendly materials.
We received a lovely candle holder Chris made from poplar wood, with a candle, representing the light of the moon and the sun.
The candle is watched over by the Raven and the wizard Tupilak--both handmade from wood and painted with watercolors by Chris. The Raven and Tupilak are characters from the Inuit legend in which Tupilak takes the sun and moon for himself to another world through a hole in the sky, and the Raven steals it back.
Yes, Chris also thoughtfully sent us a storybook filled with legends from nearly every continent about the return of light to humankind.
In our day, with the prevalence of electricity and the inability to see most stars in a brightly-lit city such as ours, it is easy to forget that just a couple of hundred years ago, anyone without a candle was plunged into darkness at the end of every day.
Our family does not celebrate Solstice as a holiday separate from Christmas, although we do teach our children about how life on earth is intertwined with its revolutions around the sun. From a young age, we've also sought to tell them about life before electricity and self-propelled machines, because the age we live in is a mere blink of an eye in the history of the earth.
As a personal aside--my husband, D, is fascinated by the weather and the turning of the seasons. He is also an optimist like no other. For D, Solstice is the epitome of the vessel of life as half full: on the day most people herald the start of Winter, D always reminds me, every year, that "the days start getting longer today, Nancy, by a few minutes every day."
Thank you, Chris, for such lovely and meaningful gifts.
