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“With this solstice and with the darkness, it’s called fertile darkness, the things that really matter in your heart can come more into the light.”

~ Jack Kornfield

The Winter Solstice on December 21st brings us the longest night of the year, when the Sun is at the furthest point from us. This year we have the added cosmic jewel of a planetary great conjunction. Jupiter and Saturn, the two largest planets in our solar system, will be virtually aligned from our vantage point on Earth.

This last happened almost 400 years ago and will be breathtaking to behold.

Winter Solstice rituals around the world herald the sanctity of light when it is most absent in our world. One significant ritual for us this year is held around a fire where bits of paper with written words are tossed in by all. The intention is of letting sorrow and regrets be consumed by the flames and transformed into renewed hopes and wishes that ascend with the smoke, bringing light back into our lives.

David Whyte is a poet and an associate fellow at Said Business School at the Unversity of Oxford, Andrew Hinton is as Emmy-winning filmmaker and Owen O'Suilleabhain hails from one of Ireland's most esteemed musical families. Together they have created a beautiful short film about blessings.

As Owen says,"The art of blessing, the art of calling in the invisible help of the divine, is ever present to the Celtic mind. As the old proverb says, this blessing is closer to you than the door—the root of blessing is to be found within, and not outside yourself."

You can find the film and the fascinating story behind the film score here.

Some art historians view Italian artist Alberto Burri (1915-1995) as one of the premier architects of Abstract Expressionism. Trained as a doctor before the war, he transformed himself into an artist while held in a Texas POW camp. Burri incorporated organic elements like tar, zinc, pumice and sand into his canvases, paying homage to the land, eventually using fire as the element of transmutation. His last series of paintings incorporated gold leaf, illuminating the mystical alchemy that transcends time, and that sometimes only art can reveal to us.

You can view his work here and see the 2016 Guggenheim retrospective,‘The Trauma of Painting’ here.

Have you ever put the words death and tourism together in the same sentence? Neither have we but the Highgate cemetery in England would beg to differ - there's an ecological angle as well, green spaces need care and tending and take care of us in return.

You can find out more here.

Jae Rhim Lee is a TED Senior Fellow who works at the intersection of death, ritual and sustainability. Her mushroom burial suit efficiently transforms bodies into clean compost.

A link to her TED talk is here.

Leon Thomas // The song 'Shape Your Mind To Die’, from Leon Thomas’ 1973 album Blues and the Soulful Truth is a singular achievement in his repertoire. “You won’t be disappointed…this one will take you places you never anticipated going”, a reviewer declared at the time of it’s release, and it’s still true today!

You can listen to the song here.

Northwest Tap Connection describes itself as "A Race and Social Justice Oriented Studio Connecting Dance Across Communities". They are based in Seattle and declare on their website that "Hard Times Require Furious Dancing.”

Dance becomes a forum for protest and grieving in their award winning "Hell You Talmbout" - a piece centered on saying, seeing and feeling their names.

A direct link to a performance is here and you can find their website here.

Photography // When photography was born in the early 19th century, one of it’s most common uses for decades was the post-mortem photograph. Artfully composed, taken by a professional, it was often the only image of the person and became a beloved memento for all time.

Today there is a growing movement of death photography, including the use of phones at home.

The links here are all stories about the practice of death photography today helping to demystify death in a profoundly human way — as part of legacy, memory and for the peace and comfort it can bring to those left behind.

Heidi Lau is the new artist in residence at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. She aims to explore the Taoist rituals she encountered with her grandparents' passing along with larger questions around a sense of place - where we belong after traveling through a life.

You can find out more about her here

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