Shortest day, longest night

I am not a religious person. I'm not particularly spiritual either, not any more. Pain and practicality and life experience have made me extremely skeptical and pragmatic. But I still like winter solstice.

Science makes this the shortest day of the year. The days start to get longer, but not warmer yet, we continue angling away from the sun though our distance changes to allow more light. Or some combination of the above. I'm no scientist. But it's the beginning of the official winter season, and importantly for me, the end of deepening dark.




We also got snow today. Not much. (certainly not as much as in the above picture.)

It's a stark, gloomy time of year. It makes me gloomy. Almost as gloomy as national events the past week or so have made me.



I make no effort to disguise how I feel about the unfettered acquisition of firearms. I don't like guns. I don't like gun nuts. People who go on and on about their second amendment rights make me profoundly uneasy and I prefer not to be around those with that mindset. It was disheartening how many people I saw on facebook and in the real world both worried about how the tragic deaths of 28 people in Newtown would jeopardize their unfettered access to firearms. I do not need such people in my life.

Today their spokesperson, the lovely Mr LaPierre, proposed a registry of mentally ill people and armed guards in schools. I don't want to share a planet with people who think this way. I really don't. Mental illness is already so stigmatized and access to care is so hard for those even able and willing to seek it. Mentally ill people are far, far more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators.

But no, we mustn't limit unfettered access to whatever firearms these people require for their elaborate "freedom" fantasies. The dead children? just collateral damage.

Sorry I'm so rambly. I guess I'm waiting for the light.