This author, who is on Pacific Coast Time, may sometimes show up later than when the post is published. That is a feature, not a bug. Other than that, site rulz rule.
So grab your cuppa, and join in!
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I was surfing the internet back in 2017, looking for inspiration for an MOT post, when I came across videos of an event in the English seaside town of Brighton & Hove, which has been held annually since 1995: Burning the Clocks. This Winter Solstice celebration is the brainchild of Same Sky, a charitable arts organization, financed by crowdfunding and the support of local businesses.
To participate, first you have to create your “clock,” using paper and willow to make a lantern – there are free lantern-making workshops for the disadvantaged, and advice for the craft-challenged. The clocks come in lots of sizes and shapes.
Then all the clock-makers join in a parade of lit lanterns through the town to the bonfire on Brighton beach, and their clocks go to the flames, a symbol of the year that is ending, and a new beginning.
A fresh take on the ancient tradition of defying the longest night of the year with bonfires and torchlight processions.
I was also reminded of Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem, “Burning the Old Year.”
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Burning the Old Year
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by Naomi Shihab Nye
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Letters swallow themselves in seconds.
Notes friends tied to the doorknob,
transparent scarlet paper,
sizzle like moth wings,
marry the air.
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So much of any year is flammable,
lists of vegetables, partial poems.
Orange swirling flame of days,
so little is a stone.
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Where there was something and suddenly isn’t,
an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space.
I begin again with the smallest numbers.
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Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,
only the things I didn’t do
crackle after the blazing dies.
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“Burning the Old Year” from Words Under the Words: Selected Poems – © 1995 by Naomi Shihab Nye
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G’Morning/Afternoon/Evening MOTlies!
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