Shining Light on the Prairie – First Ice

In perfect light.

Ideally timed.

Can’t beat that shit with a stick, an old man I knew when young used to say.

He was right.

So that’s that, for 2025 fieldwork.

Turning now toward the far side.

See you there.

You know, gods willing and the creeks don’t rise…

Yet again.

Winter Solstice, 2025

The word 'solstice' derives from the Latin sol, meaning 'sun', and sistere - to 'stand still'.

Well Before Common Era began, common folk now called pagans gathered in and around monuments of stone built to reveal seasonal secrets. Middle of winter and at the right moment’s glance, what’d been a steadily darkening world could actually be glimpsed turning reliably back toward life bringing light.

Among other things, these people danced. Also prayed for clear skies in advance, one must suppose.

And when the gods saw fit to ignore their entreaties? They guessed, I guess.

The story of how we eventually got to making stained glass runs long and is complex. Here’s that exhaustive history more or less officially told.

In any event, Common Era stained glass rose to preeminence as church windows. Not only did those throw welcome light on what’d previously been some pretty shadowy proceedings, natural light transmitted thorough colored glass channeled light’s largely illusory colors direct to the imaginative purpose of its maker.

For centuries thereafter those same church windows came commonly framed in hard right-angled stone, not circles. That trend rose, faded, then rose again, as trends will.

Late 18^th century experiments in opalescent glass staining broke through those rigid windows and modern art glass fell upon us, no previous thematic restrictions need apply.

Puny human history aside, the significance of winter solstice to life lived in northern climes remains utterly unchanged, as at that moment a dark world turns inexorably back toward the light.

Every single time. Since before the human story began and forever beyond that, besides.

This year, the perennial moment occurs on Sunday. Best check you’re your local listings for exact times.

But be there or be square.

Because if precious light's renewed embrace isn't the right time to dance during such dark times as ours, when is?

Shining Light on the Prairie – After the Fall

Beset by drought and significantly warmer than one used to expect, what at 1^st glance might’ve seemed a mundane autumn lingered long.

At liberty beneath bright skies, I wandered.

The best part for me both personally & professionally is that a significant part of that land looking occurred in the embrace of old growth woods.

That is, native forest that’s by & large stood undisturbed since time immemorial.

Well before any much vaunted New World, at any rate.

That work then put me back in touch with the forest floor like I haven’t been since I was a kid.

Also, with the distinctive character of old wood itself.

All but abstract.

Often mysterious.

But possessed of organic memory so lengthy and complex it puts our individually transient stories to shame by way of comparison.

In the end, my purposeful presence in the real world while this edge season's mostly obscure splendor quietly unfolded aced my every intention for it.

I’d have happily continued, had the unseasonable weather held.

Except the last two days of November, right on the cusp of meteorological winter, near blizzard conditions slipped all the way down from the Arctic to eat autumn’s last vestige.

Today the frigid, monochromatic season is everywhere upon the land.

For most but never all, life trudges on.

Though daring fueled by knowledge, tempered as needed by caution so to endure yet another Great Lakes winter is prerequisite for survival until next spring.

That just goes with the territory.