Solsticing

Don't Forget To Look Up!

It is a beloved tradition to spend the shortest days of the year soaking up every moment of sunshine and savoring the longest nights in semi-hibernation. This week, a coati kept us company for a few nights. We honored the critter’s active hours, despite the overlap with our rest period. We unabashedly will go to bed as early as we feel like, once it’s dark, so it is hard to whine about an intrusion while being prone for 12+ hours. The nighttime wildlife encounters remind us that this is not “lost time” but a daily period of powerful connection, where the lives that inhabit the desert graciously share space with us.

This is also how we both read so much. I will refrain from one of those end-of-year book piles because mine would fill up my truck. Don’t ask me what I do with all of these tomes. One day, if it is ever possible to create a home shelter, I hope I can build some walls and furniture out of the books.

But that is a distant thought, and living outside during winter has made it feel less immediately pressing even in the colder climes of the Four Corners. It is not even always necessary to have a campfire. Repeat…especially in the arid West. However, during the solstice, I relish the companionship of this living warmth. While living solo in the desert, I ritualistically lit a fire as a balm to loneliness.

Far from lonesome now, Aaron and I love to thoughtfully build small fires and note the details and differences in the ways different Sonoran Desert fuels burn. It is also a favorite way to cook, placing chiles, squashes, corn, and onions directly upon the coals. Roll up in a handmade tortilla and top with Chiltepin hot sauce (derived from a chile that grows wild in the Sonoran Desert borderlands).

Out in the desert, there is little to remind us of the now economically driven religious holiday this week. Rather, the sun, shirking a bit more each day, affirms that this is the solstice, despite the record 80-degree temperatures! I am fully indulging in this winter gift despite its scary implications for climate change. As we encounter rock stories, left by Hohokam and Mogollon peoples, it is a reminder that these solar cycles were honored by shifting the rhythm of life with them.

Artist Hols Wack created a beautiful series of images (below) for a Substack essay titled, “The Resting Season,” that calls attention to the ways a time-honored tradition emphasizing rest during this season has shifted into a pressure-riddled period to be as productive as possible, especially for independent creators whose livelihoods largely depend on holiday sales.

Wack writes:

This year felt especially heavy for many of my artist & maker friends. With this year’s sales slower than the past, and the ever rising cost of living, many of us felt extremely pressured to overextend and push ourselves well beyond our healthy limits. This kind of toxic overworking is easily glorified in American culture, and social media seems to amplify and praise it. Only afterwards when we are met with the extreme exhaustion of burnout does it become clear how harmful and unsustainable this is.

Rest should not be a luxury, it’s a necessity for our bodies & health. We are animals after all, we are a part of nature, just like the land, plants and critters around us. And like them, we are not meant to be in a state of constant motion.

Earlier in the week, I created an Instagram reel attempting to sell some books for this very reason. That and because a box of books takes up critical space in a truck loaded up for a month of camping. The video was more fun to make than the results (the gram ain’t what it used to be). The bad feelings were compounded by my understanding of how many people are financially strapped this time of year. And the fact that I cannot afford to support other creators in kind. Or that selling a few more copies will not change that.¹

Maybe I am not a good salesperson because I generally do not want things.² Except books, because they are not “things,” they are stories that carry on a new life with each reader. The only gift I want is cutting off screen time (as much as that is possible). I sometimes cringe when people share “going offline,” but I think it is important to normalize taking breaks from this technology that intrudes on our lives more than anything else.

That said, thank you for sharing some of your online screen time with Wild Words this year. Typing these letters to all of you is truly a joyful part of my dance between the wild and written worlds. I look forward to returning in the New Year with some good news. Wild Words subscribers will be the first to know!

Until then, we will be solsticing through the end of the year––walking in the sunshine, cooking on an open flame, reading voraciously, and sleeping among our fellow animals in nature.

Wishing you a happy solstice. Don’t forget to look up! 🌞

Unless you are walking around the desert with your delightfully nerdy friends, then by all means, keep your eyes on the ground where magic awaits!

---

This autumn, I enjoyed a conversation with Kelly Moody, host of the Ground Shots podcast. I am grateful for the show’s thoughtful focus on ecology and emergent philosophy, stories, and connection. In the episode, we discuss colonialism and public lands, the role of culture and ecology in connecting to our home places, Path of Light and retracing the Bernheimer Expeditions, threats to Western public lands, and the future of the Colorado River. I especially enjoy the original soundtrack created for this episode by Ted Packard, Lucy Wild, and Annika Fae. More info here.

1. Remember, all annual subscribers also receive a copy. However, if you would like to just buy a copy of Path of Light, please message me, and I will happily arrange it for $27, which includes shipping.

2. I do not want things; I want healthy and protected public lands and water. As a way to participate in this, there are several non-profits that I work closely with. Their work, and our collaborations, are made possible by the generous donations of folks who do have spare income. If that’s you, and you need a tax break before 2025 ends, please consider helping Grand Staircase Escalante Partners and Glen Canyon Institute.