12/20/2025
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Solstice Reflections: Light, Loss, and Hope
This year’s winter solstice arrives on Sunday, December 21, when the sun reaches its southernmost point in the sky. Across the Northern Hemisphere, it marks the shortest day and longest night of the year—a turning point when the longest night slowly shifts back to the longest day. In Wisconsin, the sun will slip below the horizon at 4:19 p.m. At that time, though still afternoon, shadows will stretch deep across forest and field. To stand in that moment is to sense both ending and beginning, as dusk settles with the calls of sandhill cranes and the steady flight of eagles over open water.
In these days, dim, angled light becomes precious. The low sun casts long shadows, laying a sheen upon the frost as bright as it is ephemeral. Plants, stripped of leaves, conserve energy in roots and seeds, waiting for the tilt of the earth to bring warmth again. Animals adjust their patterns—white‑tailed deer paw through snow for hidden forage, chickadees flit restlessly at feeders, and butterflies such as mourning cloaks cling to bark, enduring the cold as adults. Even in absence, light shapes behavior, guiding migrations, dormancy, and the subtle recalibration of life’s pace. The solstice teaches us to value sunlight not as abundance but as a gift, a scarce resource that sustains all life.
Loss is always a part of the season. The absence of birdsong, the silence of insects, the stillness of frozen ponds—all remind us that life contracts in winter. And some species do not return: the rusty‑patched bumblebee, once common in Wisconsin prairies, now endangered; red‑headed woodpeckers shifting northward as climate alters their range. The solstice, with its long night, becomes a mirror for these absences, a time when we feel the weight of what has been diminished. Yet loss, though heavy, clears space for renewal; it is the soil in which hope germinates. It teaches us to notice, to remember, to hold space for what has vanished and to act with care for what remains.
Yet within this darkness, seeds lie in patient reserve beneath the snow, buds are already formed on bare branches, and the tilt of the earth ensures that light will lengthen again. Hope is not naïve—it is grounded in the capacity of ecosystems to recover when given space and respect. The solstice reminds us that renewal is possible, that cycles of contraction are followed by expansion, that even the longest night cannot prevent the dawn.
To reflect at the solstice is to hold three truths: the gift of light, the reality of loss, and the persistence of hope. It is to recognize that our own lives are braided into all the life around us, that our choices shape whether resilience or decline will dominate the seasons to come. The solstice asks us to honor the darkness without fear, to celebrate the light without complacency, and to commit ourselves to the work of sustaining the earth's fragile balance.
The land teaches us that endings are never final, that each descent into shadow carries the possibility of return. To walk through the solstice landscape is to practice reverence, to see in the long night not emptiness but preparation, not despair but continuity. And then—one lengthening ray pierces the snow, a promise of the chorus to come. Light will return, carrying with it the cranes’ calls, the eagles’ flight, the butterflies’ return, and beautiful birdsong everywhere. Loss will remind us to act with care. Hope will guide us. In this way, the solstice becomes not only a celestial event but a profound ecological meditation.
