The days are getting shorter. It is darker longer. The daytime shadows are long and harsh. That sun always seems to be in our eyes lately. The weather is cooler and waxing worse. Bah humbug!

Yes, it's all a little irritating, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I know the solstice is upon us and things will be better.

The winter solstice, which arrives on the 21st of December, is not just a human calendar event. It is an astronomical one first.

Our planet and its orbit are oriented to the sun in such a way that allows us our annual spectrum of seasons. Regular readers here will remember that when we are tilted most towards the sun we have the summer solstice. Daytimes are longest, the sun rises highest in the sky and there is a warming trend in the weather.

The equinoxes - both spring and fall - are when we are tilted neither away nor towards the sun. There is equal daytime from pole to shining pole.

But after September when we in the northern hemisphere are beginning to tilt away from the sun - when the sun rises and sets farther south, stays up for shorter periods of time, and never gets too high in the sky - it is then that things change for us both in the physical realm of nature and in our human experience.

Most people in the northern hemisphere experience a change in weather. It is colder, darker, and the weather often goes "bad." Our life-giving sun is giving us the impression that it is about to leave and not come back.

You can imagine what ancient peoples thought about this threat of a departing sun. Not knowing that the sun was a ball of hydrogen and helium but fully aware of the role it played in life, there evolved rituals at this time of the year either imploring the sun to return or celebrating the fact that it would.

Solstice, which loosely translates as "the sun as stopped," happens at just the right time for us, before the sun gets too close to the horizon. After that date, the sun begins to rise again higher in the sky each day, the lands begin to warm again, the light lasts longer.

My hope is that this solstice season is a reminder to all of us who fear the dark, and feel our situation at the moment is bleak and hopeless. It won't keep getting darker, the life-giving sun is coming back!