Today is the Winter Solstice, an important day in the calendar, when darkness culminates and the return of light begins.
The darkness has seemed particularly dark this year, so the end of this cycle is welcome. But before moving on I felt like taking a minute (or an hour) to wallow in it. Darkness, after all, is overcome by confronting it, not by avoiding it; in the I Ching, the “young light” emerges only after “darkness is increased by one.”
But of course, being who I am, I couldn’t resist adding some uplift at the end. It may take a while to arrive, but hold on, it’s coming. I recommend listening at dusk with a cocktail in hand, as I am doing at this very moment.
Playlist:
- Farewell Our Ancient Glory Rev. Jack Drummond
- Darkness King Khan & the Shrines
- Slippin’ into Darkness War
- The Werewolf Paul Simon
- Brain Damage/Eclipse Pink Floyd
- Hireling Traitor’s Wages Rev. Jack Drummond
- Beware of Darkness George Harrison
- Darkness Leonard Cohen
- Gimme Shelter The Sisters of Mercy
- Instruments of Darkness (excerpt) The Art of Noise
- Darkness Peter Gabriel
- Eulogy and Light Funkadelic
- The Truth (excerpt) Handsome Boy Modeling School
- Coffee Cold Galt McDermott
- Bought and Sold for English Gold Rev. Jack Drummond & Bill Drummond
- Midnight Sun David Sylvian
- Loud Cloud Crowd Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks
- Chapter 24 Pink Floyd
- Everybody’s Going to Make It This Time Funkadelic