YESTERDAY, in case you didn’t notice, was the day of the winter solstice. It’s probably fair to say that most of us don’t notice the solstice, unless we come across a reference to it as we zoom past a calendar, or our eye is caught by one of those perennially astonishing photographs of the annual carry-on inside the Stone Age burial mound at Newgrange.
The sight of the sun trickling through the ancient stones is also a reminder that the days are at their shortest just as your list of pre-Christmas chores seems to grow longer and longer; and you don’t have to be a megalithic architectural genius to figure out how that particular equation is likely to affect your life this week.
But if we stop to examine it for a moment, the fact that we do all this frantic rushing around every year at the time of the winter solstice may well be no coincidence. The word “solstice” translates as “standing-still sun”. Technically, as we all know, it has to do with the tilt of the earth’s axis as it rotates, and the position of the sun relative to the equator. What science doesn’t really account for is our extraordinary emotional response to the phenomenon – which is a whole different ball-game.
In ancient cultures across the northern hemisphere, winter solstice celebrations were characterised by a striking combination of joy and terror: joy that the sun had reached its lowest ebb and would now start to climb again, terror lest it should slip below the horizon and disappear forever. The season of the winter solstice was also recognised as the beginning of the famine season, starvation being a routine occurrence in agricultural communities between the months of January and April.
As we lurch towards another spate of seasonal over-indulgence, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that while we may be better at astrophysics and agriculture than our megalithic forebears – the occasional pork scare notwithstanding – we really don’t find it any easier to face up to the stark realities of loss, grief and death than they did. The pace of modern life makes it harder than ever for us to stand still, philosophically speaking, and listen to the rhythms of the earth – even though, thanks to accelerating climate change, our species is staring extinction in the face for the first time in many centuries.
If we could do with someone to make us listen, we could also do with someone to give us hope; and in the absence of imaginative philosophical leadership from church, state or science, many people have found in the voice of the Irish poet and philosopher John O’Donohue an open-ended, mature spirituality which is both rooted in ancient rhythms and tuned in to the complexities of contemporary life.
This time last year O’Donohue was just one of a group of writers at work on the liberal eco-religious left. His new book Benedictus, a collection of blessings, had been hailed as his most original since Anam Cara. Then, on January 4th, 2008, at the age of 53, O’Donohue died. His books promptly began to fly off the shelves; as the year passed, his burial place at Fanore, Co Clare, became a place of pilgrimage. Whatever the man himself might feel about his fast-track transition from dissenting voice to set-in-stone guru, there’s no doubt that his gentle, reflective meditations have struck a chord with a great number of people.
In the years to come it seems inevitable that O’Donohue’s legacy will be twisted by successors, imitators and dodgy interpreters; so the release on DVD of an independent documentary which allows him to speak for himself is all the more timely.
“It’s strange to be talking about John now that he’s gone,” says its director, Marina Levitina. “He was so alive. He could turn things around, and see the funny side, in an instant.” He never saw the completed film, but he would doubtless be amused by the fact that a Russian film-maker could present such an arrestingly beautiful view of West of Ireland landscapes.
Then again, maybe not; for the concept of threshold – the creative tension between the door that closes and the door that opens – is a central one in O’Donohue’s thought. “I met my husband when I first came to Ireland from Russia in 2002 to film John,” Levitina says. “Two years later John married us. So it’s a combination of a Russian eye and an Irish eye.”
It took almost six years to make the film, she adds. “But the fact that it did take so long ended up being a very positive thing. We all got to know each other better; we got to be friends with John, which made a big difference to how he’s represented.”
It’s a fair bet that as the world turns and 2008 becomes 2009, we’re going to be listening to a litany of rising unemployment statistics and plunging retail sales figures. “When your eyes freeze behind the grey window and the ghost of loss gets into you,” O’Donohue writes in Benedictus, “may a flock of colours – indigo, red, green and azure blue – come to awaken in you a meadow of delight.” May we have the wisdom to stop for a moment –just now and again – and notice. And maybe even smile.
The DVD Anam Cara is available from record shops around the country, or from the distributors Cosmic Sounds in Goatstown, Dublin 14, priced €24.99.