WEBVTT - Winter Solstice 0:00:03.400 --> 0:00:11.640 A centeral is the protection of my heart radio. Tomorrow, 0:00:13.760 --> 0:00:18.040 the northern hemisphere will experience the shortest day and longest 0:00:18.160 --> 0:00:22.720 night of the year. In our era of electric lights, 0:00:23.160 --> 0:00:27.560 high speed travel, and commercially regulated harvests, it might as 0:00:27.560 --> 0:00:31.080 well be a blip on the calendar. And yet this moment, 0:00:31.760 --> 0:00:35.560 one far end on the spectrum of natural change, hits 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:39.160 all of us somewhere deep, like it has for people 0:00:39.280 --> 0:00:44.080 dating back to the beginning. I'm feeling a little thrilled 0:00:44.120 --> 0:00:46.640 to be talking about it today because I'm not only 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:50.560 in the midst as we all are, of a seasonal solstice, 0:00:51.120 --> 0:00:54.840 but also I think we're in a cultural solstice right now, 0:00:55.440 --> 0:00:59.720 where we don't really know what's going to happen, in 0:00:59.760 --> 0:01:03.520 this same way that the ancients huddled around Stonehenge didn't 0:01:03.560 --> 0:01:07.559 really quite know whether or not the sun would begin 0:01:07.640 --> 0:01:13.800 to move again. I'm Caroline McVicker Edwards, and we're going 0:01:13.840 --> 0:01:16.319 to get to talk about a book that I wrote 0:01:16.319 --> 0:01:18.880 about twenty years ago called The Return of the Light, 0:01:19.560 --> 0:01:22.559 Twelve Tales from around the World for the Winter Solstice. 0:01:24.480 --> 0:01:28.800 Carolyn is also a lifelong educator. I imagine that you 0:01:29.000 --> 0:01:31.919 have spent a lot of time talking to children. That's true. 0:01:32.560 --> 0:01:37.040 If you were having a discussion, maybe doing some explanation 0:01:37.240 --> 0:01:40.360 to a child about the sun and the changing of 0:01:40.440 --> 0:01:45.600 seasons and that drama, how might that conversation go mm hmm. 0:01:48.200 --> 0:01:53.840 So every year there's a time. It's summertime, when school 0:01:53.920 --> 0:01:57.200 is out, when the days are really long, Right, you're 0:01:57.240 --> 0:02:01.600 playing out in the street till nine clock, and you 0:02:01.640 --> 0:02:04.520 don't have to come in because it's getting dark, and 0:02:04.600 --> 0:02:08.280 it's not cold. In fact, it's hot and the sun 0:02:08.960 --> 0:02:13.639 is there all day long for you to swim and play. 0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:16.440 And depending on where you are, it might be really 0:02:16.480 --> 0:02:19.399 hot and you might have to come in and get 0:02:19.440 --> 0:02:22.800 in the shade, but the sun is out. And then 0:02:23.160 --> 0:02:29.000 comes Halloween, and Halloween you can tell that by the 0:02:29.040 --> 0:02:33.520 time you go trick or treating, it's dark much earlier 0:02:33.560 --> 0:02:36.760 than it was in the summer. Halloween is a time 0:02:36.840 --> 0:02:41.280 when we think about the dark, we think about the 0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:45.440 beginning of the dark. Like we plant a seed inside 0:02:45.440 --> 0:02:49.240 of the dirt, and the seed is, of course, the sun. 0:02:49.840 --> 0:02:53.000 It's kind of like a Halloween. We're plucking the seed 0:02:53.080 --> 0:02:55.800 of the sun out of the sky. It's not there 0:02:55.840 --> 0:02:58.560 for us anywhere. We're putting it in the ground. And 0:02:58.639 --> 0:03:01.000 it's going to grow again. It we have to plant 0:03:01.080 --> 0:03:04.680 it and be in the dark, be with the idea 0:03:04.760 --> 0:03:10.519 that death comes and the leaves fall, and all the 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:14.959 fruits that we're on our fruit trees we've now gathered 0:03:15.040 --> 0:03:19.880 in and we're eating. And especially if we celebrate the 0:03:19.960 --> 0:03:22.880 Day of the Dead, we think about all the people 0:03:22.880 --> 0:03:26.800 who came before us that handed down our stories and 0:03:26.880 --> 0:03:30.760 our ways of connecting to each other. And then after 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:35.600 Halloween it gets even darker and darker, and people start 0:03:35.680 --> 0:03:43.040 putting up lights. And then somewhere after whatever holiday you celebrate, 0:03:43.200 --> 0:03:45.520 it might be Christmas, it might be Quands, that might 0:03:45.560 --> 0:03:51.160 be Honukkah, then you start noticing, oh, it's getting a 0:03:51.320 --> 0:03:56.400 little bit lighter and a little tiny bit lighter every day, 0:03:56.640 --> 0:04:00.280 until it's almost like the light has been born, like 0:04:00.360 --> 0:04:02.960 it's a little baby. And by February it's kind of 0:04:03.000 --> 0:04:06.440 like a teenager. The days are much longer than they 0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:10.680 were in December, and then they get longer and longer 0:04:10.680 --> 0:04:14.760 and longer, until finally in June the days are as 0:04:14.920 --> 0:04:18.159 long as they're going to be all year. If you 0:04:18.279 --> 0:04:22.599 live way up high towards the North Pole, the sun 0:04:22.640 --> 0:04:25.200 doesn't set at all. It doesn't appear to set. It's 0:04:25.279 --> 0:04:29.479 just light all around the clock, and then it gets 0:04:29.560 --> 0:04:35.120 darker and darker and darker. The light gets smaller and smaller, 0:04:35.160 --> 0:04:37.719 and the dark gets bigger and bigger, and then it 0:04:37.880 --> 0:04:48.240 happens all over again the next year. What do we 0:04:48.320 --> 0:04:52.920 mean by the word solstice, So it literally means sun 0:04:52.960 --> 0:04:58.719 soul stice stands still around what we call the winter solstice, 0:04:58.760 --> 0:05:02.440 which is the twenty two December in the northern hemisphere 0:05:03.000 --> 0:05:06.440 on the horizon. The sun appears to just sort of 0:05:06.520 --> 0:05:11.000 hang there that period of time. Those six days where 0:05:11.000 --> 0:05:16.000 the sun does not appear to be moving were terrifying. 0:05:17.000 --> 0:05:20.040 If it did not appear to begin to move again, 0:05:20.480 --> 0:05:24.040 the light would not lengthen and there would not be 0:05:24.240 --> 0:05:28.719 light for crops to grow. So there was all kinds 0:05:28.800 --> 0:05:34.160 of rituals that developed, both celebratory but also to teach 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:39.280 the sun to return, and it became a focus of 0:05:39.480 --> 0:05:43.800 communal life to encourage the sun and encourage each other. 0:05:44.640 --> 0:05:47.400 And we still certainly have remnants of that in all 0:05:47.440 --> 0:05:51.440 the Christmas lights, the Hanukah lights, the Quansa lights, and 0:05:51.560 --> 0:05:54.479 we speak in the way that people have for a 0:05:54.520 --> 0:05:59.160 long time about gathering together and putting away enmity and 0:05:59.560 --> 0:06:03.320 taking care of each other and feeding the hungry. We 0:06:03.480 --> 0:06:07.839 get really collectively tightened up at this time of year 0:06:07.920 --> 0:06:14.960 because it's a scary time of year. For millennia, the 0:06:15.040 --> 0:06:19.040 solstice has been formally recognized by cultures across the world, 0:06:19.640 --> 0:06:24.200 from the Roman festivals of Brumalia, Saturnalia, and Opalia, the 0:06:24.360 --> 0:06:30.120 Chinese dong Gi Yalda, the Persian celebration recognizing the birth 0:06:30.120 --> 0:06:34.120 of Mithra, the sun god, and countless others. It seems 0:06:34.160 --> 0:06:40.000 that commemorating the beginning of winter is an almost universal tradition. Well, 0:06:40.040 --> 0:06:44.479 you know, near the equator, there isn't this big drama 0:06:44.560 --> 0:06:48.920 that we experience in both the southern and northern hemispheres 0:06:49.160 --> 0:06:53.200 as they move farther towards the poles. But there's always 0:06:53.200 --> 0:06:56.680 an experience for human beings of in some way, both 0:06:56.760 --> 0:06:59.120 in our personal lives and in our cultural lives, of 0:06:59.320 --> 0:07:04.840 not no wing what's coming next, and feeling afraid, and 0:07:04.880 --> 0:07:09.760 then this coalescing of community around that. Because we're mammals, right, 0:07:10.200 --> 0:07:14.680 we share a kind of a collective nervous system. We 0:07:14.760 --> 0:07:18.480 share our anxiety, and we share our calm and doing 0:07:18.520 --> 0:07:24.480 things together like singing and dancing and ritual, just being together, 0:07:24.600 --> 0:07:28.440 touching shoulders on the couch, putting our arms around our kids, 0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:34.520 cooking and eating together. These things are nervous system commerce. Yes, 0:07:34.680 --> 0:07:37.520 it is often focused on the sun, but there are 0:07:38.000 --> 0:07:44.120 other ways that we metaphorically experience a standing still in 0:07:44.160 --> 0:07:48.200 the sense that we don't know what's coming. And I 0:07:48.240 --> 0:07:52.200 think that you will find across the world, across cultures, 0:07:52.520 --> 0:07:58.480 ways that people come together around asking for help from 0:07:58.520 --> 0:08:01.920 the gods, from the power, ways that they come together 0:08:02.040 --> 0:08:07.120 around making decisions that are big decisions that affect the group. 0:08:08.120 --> 0:08:11.240 And you will find connected with those a sense of 0:08:11.760 --> 0:08:17.800 humility and surrender to powers that are greater than the group, 0:08:18.000 --> 0:08:25.440 and yet that can be contacted by the group. Caroline's 0:08:25.480 --> 0:08:29.520 Winter Solstice collection, The Return of the Light retaels folk 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:32.920 tales and myths that have passed down from cultures around 0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:37.760 the world, some of which date back to antiquity. For 0:08:37.840 --> 0:08:43.000 the Retellings, it's a process of finding myself in the 0:08:43.080 --> 0:08:46.920 story in some way, finding the place where I resonate psychologically, 0:08:47.679 --> 0:08:51.160 and then to collect them. It was important for me 0:08:51.240 --> 0:08:55.800 in general, is to have some sort of organizing principle. 0:08:56.880 --> 0:08:59.920 In this case with this book, it was chaos theory, 0:09:01.160 --> 0:09:06.760 which basically says that at the edges of things, it's chaotic, 0:09:07.320 --> 0:09:10.480 but it's paradox because if you look at mandel Brock's 0:09:10.559 --> 0:09:16.000 designs at the microscopic level, they're these fantastically beautiful patterns. 0:09:17.480 --> 0:09:23.520 So it's completely chaotic and there's a pattern. It is 0:09:23.640 --> 0:09:27.280 my own overlay, because of course, the ancients did not 0:09:27.520 --> 0:09:32.240 talk explicitly about this kind of anxiety. They told stories, 0:09:33.080 --> 0:09:36.080 and the stories were not invented by one person. It's 0:09:36.120 --> 0:09:39.080 a kind of a mystery how stories rise up and 0:09:39.320 --> 0:09:43.440 get told in our past on. But my hypothesis is 0:09:44.160 --> 0:09:48.520 these stories are the ancients way of talking about the 0:09:48.679 --> 0:09:51.679 chaos at the edge where you don't know what's going on, 0:09:52.040 --> 0:09:56.880 and the folk tales address that by using the themes 0:09:56.920 --> 0:10:13.960 of theft, surrender, and race. The first selection of four 0:10:14.040 --> 0:10:18.440 stories are unified by their theme of theft, the stealing 0:10:18.480 --> 0:10:22.280 of the light. It's it's so interesting. I mean, so 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:26.320 many of these stories begin with like in the time 0:10:26.880 --> 0:10:29.680 where the world was just dark and like that was 0:10:29.760 --> 0:10:32.520 just not working for people. There was somebody that got 0:10:32.559 --> 0:10:35.880 fed up and or you know, felt ostracized, it felt 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:38.679 one off, and it was like, okay, I'm gonna I'm 0:10:38.679 --> 0:10:41.359 gonna take a leap of faith. I'm gonna do something courageous, 0:10:41.360 --> 0:10:44.000 and I'm gonna hatch a crazy scheme and go up 0:10:44.040 --> 0:10:45.760 here and steal all of it are a little bit, 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:48.960 or get what I can of this light. Yes, so 0:10:49.240 --> 0:10:51.720 it's kind of a celebration of a certain kind of 0:10:51.720 --> 0:10:58.000 initiative from the lament Coo Mewalk tribe people indigenous to 0:10:58.040 --> 0:11:02.120 the north coast of California round Bodega Bay. Our first 0:11:02.120 --> 0:11:08.720 story is why Hummingbird has a red throat. Really, Hummingbird 0:11:08.880 --> 0:11:14.079 ends up being the thief, but the story actually begins 0:11:14.200 --> 0:11:18.720 with marsh wren Chaka, who is left out of the 0:11:18.760 --> 0:11:23.880 group and feels a shame and hunkered down rage that 0:11:24.040 --> 0:11:28.440 he's left out, and so he uses his sharp little 0:11:28.480 --> 0:11:31.920 beak to punch out the sun, almost as if it 0:11:31.960 --> 0:11:35.240 were a bladder. So he pops it like a balloon. 0:11:36.200 --> 0:11:41.680 And then coyote gets involved, and the trickster coyote enless 0:11:41.800 --> 0:11:46.640 Hummingbird to go and steal some of the light. Hummingbird 0:11:46.679 --> 0:11:48.959 is the only one that can get through the tiny 0:11:49.000 --> 0:11:53.640 crack in the sky. Swooping in, he steals some of 0:11:53.679 --> 0:11:56.679 the sun and as he clutches it against his throat, 0:11:56.720 --> 0:12:00.160 he gets that red marking that he doesn't have for 0:12:00.280 --> 0:12:13.600 the story birds. The next story is from the Thoria Risa, 0:12:13.960 --> 0:12:17.880 a group of tribal people's in India, and it's the 0:12:17.960 --> 0:12:21.520 story of a young girl with a set of beautiful 0:12:21.600 --> 0:12:24.880 ear rings. Bearings are classic backed injuries you know who. 0:12:24.920 --> 0:12:26.920 Bearings have always been in style, so it's something you 0:12:26.960 --> 0:12:30.080 can't go wrong with. A kite, which is like a 0:12:30.280 --> 0:12:34.160 kestrel or a hawk rips one of the ear rings 0:12:34.320 --> 0:12:38.480 from her ear steals her earring and carries it up 0:12:38.520 --> 0:12:42.480 to the otherwise all dark sky and hangs it there 0:12:42.520 --> 0:12:55.680 where it becomes the sun gold bearing castabout. In the 0:12:55.800 --> 0:13:00.520 next story from the Inuit people of North America, tuopy Lock, 0:13:00.880 --> 0:13:04.120 who is sort of a magician, ends up taking the 0:13:04.200 --> 0:13:08.400 sun for himself, and then Raven, of course, a very 0:13:08.440 --> 0:13:13.320 famous trickster, figures out a way to turn himself into 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:16.840 a feather and to float on the water which is 0:13:17.400 --> 0:13:21.840 quoughed down by this beautiful daughter of tuopy Lock, and 0:13:21.920 --> 0:13:25.000 she then gives birth to a little baby, who is 0:13:25.040 --> 0:13:30.360 of course Raven in disguise, who ends up wailing for 0:13:30.480 --> 0:13:33.559 the big bags in which the magician has hung up 0:13:33.880 --> 0:13:37.480 the sun and the moon. They give in to him 0:13:37.520 --> 0:13:41.000 and Raven takes the light back to his people. So 0:13:41.120 --> 0:13:45.520 again it's a trickster kind of energy required to work 0:13:45.600 --> 0:13:58.319 here at the Edges. And then finally again from the Arisa, 0:14:00.880 --> 0:14:04.960 the sun Cow and the Thief. As a special treat, 0:14:05.320 --> 0:14:07.600 we'll have Caroline read the sun Cow in the Thief 0:14:07.840 --> 0:14:17.800 later in the episode. After Theft, come Surrender. In my 0:14:17.920 --> 0:14:23.240 own process, it feels like I have to sit with 0:14:23.320 --> 0:14:28.360 the senses that I have around feeling mugged or that 0:14:28.680 --> 0:14:33.120 kind of shocked grief or that kind of perception of loss, 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:36.480 and have to move away from my denial and into 0:14:36.560 --> 0:14:40.520 that feeling, and then the next step is to surrender 0:14:40.600 --> 0:14:45.360 to it, to just let go without knowing what the 0:14:45.400 --> 0:14:48.360 outcome can be. So in the theft stories there's sort 0:14:48.360 --> 0:14:51.840 of a resistance to the status quo, and in the 0:14:51.880 --> 0:14:56.440 surrender stories there's more of an allowing change to happen, 0:14:56.920 --> 0:15:00.760 of saying yes, I need to change, we need to change, 0:15:00.840 --> 0:15:04.160 this needs to change, this needs to move, and something 0:15:04.240 --> 0:15:07.800 might even have to be broken. The first story in 0:15:07.800 --> 0:15:11.200 that section about Maui, who is also like Raven, a 0:15:11.360 --> 0:15:16.120 super famous trickster, a Polynesian trickster. This time the surrender 0:15:16.160 --> 0:15:19.960 is actually from the sun itself. His legs are broken. 0:15:20.000 --> 0:15:23.200 He's like, okay, okay, okay, I give in, and the 0:15:23.280 --> 0:15:26.760 broken legs allow half of the year the sun to 0:15:26.840 --> 0:15:32.400 walk slowly across the sky. That next story, which I'm 0:15:32.440 --> 0:15:35.520 telling not from the emperor's point of view but from 0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:39.720 a tribal point of view, is from the Meut Sioux people's, 0:15:39.760 --> 0:15:44.280 who are indigenous peoples of China. It posits that there 0:15:44.280 --> 0:15:49.560 are six sons which are burning the earth up. This 0:15:49.720 --> 0:15:55.040 very thoughtful warrior realizes that the suns cannot be shot 0:15:55.160 --> 0:15:57.640 out of the sky, as the other warriors are trying 0:15:57.640 --> 0:16:01.600 to do. But there's this as a of so below moment. 0:16:02.120 --> 0:16:05.000 Instead of shooting the sun's out of the sky, he 0:16:05.120 --> 0:16:08.400 finds their reflection in water and shoots them out of 0:16:08.440 --> 0:16:11.480 the water. And then only one son is left, but 0:16:11.680 --> 0:16:16.520 grieving his brother's hides in a cave, and of course 0:16:16.920 --> 0:16:19.840 we have the sun again refusing to come out or 0:16:20.080 --> 0:16:25.280 being resistant. But then the crowing of the rooster outside 0:16:25.320 --> 0:16:28.760 the caves door enchants the sun into coming out. So 0:16:29.480 --> 0:16:32.760 the sun surrenders in a sweet way. In that story, 0:16:32.840 --> 0:16:35.440 instead of like okay, okay, I give in. It's like, whoa, 0:16:36.400 --> 0:16:40.760 what is this beautiful music outside? What is this crowing? 0:16:41.000 --> 0:16:42.800 And then the sun comes all the way out and 0:16:42.880 --> 0:16:46.920 lights things up again. It seems to me that there's people, 0:16:47.120 --> 0:16:49.560 maybe myself being one, that would take issue at the 0:16:49.680 --> 0:16:51.480 sun on that point. It's like, should you have maybe 0:16:51.520 --> 0:16:53.880 like listen to a little bit more rooster crowing before 0:16:53.920 --> 0:16:56.960 you went with that is your wake up song that's 0:16:57.000 --> 0:17:06.800 been driving peoples for ages. But along with these eleven 0:17:06.840 --> 0:17:12.040 folk tns, Caroline decided to include one myth. The North 0:17:12.080 --> 0:17:17.679 Smith poses Light as a beautiful young man and his brother, 0:17:18.200 --> 0:17:23.680 who is Darkness, is blind Balder, the god of Light, 0:17:24.160 --> 0:17:26.919 has a dream that he will die, and so the 0:17:27.000 --> 0:17:31.359 whole story revolves around the frantic work of the gods 0:17:31.359 --> 0:17:35.400 and goddesses to keep this beautiful young man alive. And Loki, 0:17:35.480 --> 0:17:38.480 of course, is the trickster, and he's jealous of all 0:17:38.560 --> 0:17:41.760 the attention the god of Light is getting, and so 0:17:41.880 --> 0:17:47.040 he arranges to trick blind Hode, the twin of Light 0:17:47.240 --> 0:17:53.440 the Dark, into accidentally killing his brother. Loki finds out 0:17:53.560 --> 0:17:58.520 that Mistletoe is the one being on earth not already 0:17:58.600 --> 0:18:03.520 exhorted not to hurt poor Balder, the god of Light, 0:18:03.680 --> 0:18:06.959 because everybody thinks that mistletoe is too weak to do 0:18:07.040 --> 0:18:10.960 any harm anyway. But in Loki's hand, and he puts 0:18:11.000 --> 0:18:15.919 it into the god of Darkness's hand, it does harm Balder, 0:18:15.960 --> 0:18:21.520 and Balder dies, his wife dies of grief. And this 0:18:21.600 --> 0:18:25.400 is the epic level. The whole world collapses because there 0:18:25.480 --> 0:18:29.280 is no light. You find terrible destruction in North Smith's 0:18:29.359 --> 0:18:32.040 and it was a very harsh place on the planet 0:18:32.080 --> 0:18:37.159 to live. Loki is punished, and then finally, out of 0:18:37.200 --> 0:18:42.680 the ashes comes Balder again, light free from the underworld, 0:18:43.000 --> 0:18:46.760 and I love this part. The only two humans left 0:18:46.800 --> 0:18:48.960 in the Middle world, between the Upper world and the 0:18:49.000 --> 0:18:53.320 lower world, the two who had hidden themselves away, came 0:18:53.400 --> 0:18:57.680 out into this new light. Their names were Life and 0:18:57.880 --> 0:19:02.960 the Stubborn Will to Live. The gods and goddesses. Then 0:19:03.000 --> 0:19:06.080 the ones who were left gathered together on the sunlit 0:19:06.200 --> 0:19:10.880 plane of the Upper World, home of the Wind, shyly, joyfully. 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:14.760 They clung to the returning couple, even as Life and 0:19:14.880 --> 0:19:17.560 Stubborn Will to Live had clung to each other in 0:19:17.600 --> 0:19:21.520 the Middle World. The gods and goddesses sifted through the 0:19:21.520 --> 0:19:25.480 wreckage of their great Hall in the ruins, they found 0:19:25.520 --> 0:19:32.120 the golden chess pieces with which they had once amused themselves. Slowly, slowly, 0:19:32.440 --> 0:19:37.480 they began to play again. So there's the two characters 0:19:37.480 --> 0:19:41.040 of life and the stubborn will to live? What do 0:19:41.080 --> 0:19:44.720 those mean? Do you? How do you separate those two things? Oh? Well, 0:19:44.800 --> 0:19:48.920 I guess one feels like, you know, you picture the 0:19:48.960 --> 0:19:52.760 grass coming up through the cement sidewalk crack, you know 0:19:52.880 --> 0:19:57.600 that life will out. There's that amazing book about the 0:19:57.640 --> 0:20:03.200 abandoned land at Chernobyl, which had that terrible nuclear accident 0:20:03.400 --> 0:20:06.520 thirty years ago. Now no humans live there, but it's 0:20:06.560 --> 0:20:10.720 just a vibrating with life because humans have kept their 0:20:10.720 --> 0:20:13.960 hands off at all this time. And then the stubborn 0:20:14.000 --> 0:20:17.560 will to live feels like it's a very human thing, 0:20:17.720 --> 0:20:21.520 or maybe it's just a sentient being thing that there 0:20:21.800 --> 0:20:27.040 is inside of animals and people and maybe the planet itself. 0:20:27.080 --> 0:20:32.880 There is this will towards life. So the one seems 0:20:32.920 --> 0:20:37.440 like a force that is completely mysterious, and the other 0:20:37.560 --> 0:20:42.080 seems like more of an emotional response to that force. 0:20:44.640 --> 0:20:51.080 The last story in the surrender section is this really 0:20:51.160 --> 0:20:55.800 sweet story from the Sukumba people of Tanzania about these 0:20:55.880 --> 0:21:00.760 three little, tiny animals. Once again, you this theme of 0:21:01.200 --> 0:21:03.800 you need to be small to get through the crack, 0:21:03.960 --> 0:21:06.479 to get to the other side where their son is. 0:21:07.040 --> 0:21:10.200 In this case, it's not a theft. It's the three 0:21:10.280 --> 0:21:15.919 little animals working together in order to outwit the sky 0:21:16.080 --> 0:21:21.600 people who are refusing to give away their light. In particular, 0:21:21.840 --> 0:21:26.960 Fly very reluctantly agrees to work with Spider, at first 0:21:27.000 --> 0:21:35.879 saying like, no, I'm not working with Spider polic you know, 0:21:36.080 --> 0:21:40.040 Spider will eat me, and then being reminded like, you know, 0:21:40.800 --> 0:21:44.760 the overarching theme here is we have to work together, 0:21:44.800 --> 0:21:49.520 and so Fly surrenders to that bigger call, the Harambi 0:21:49.720 --> 0:21:51.679 call of we have to work together, we have to 0:21:51.720 --> 0:21:56.119 pull together here, and thus manages to work with his 0:21:56.280 --> 0:22:07.439 enemy to get light, and after surrender comes grace. We 0:22:07.520 --> 0:22:12.040 all know that sometimes something just comes to us that 0:22:12.119 --> 0:22:15.600 has nothing to do with our will. We may have 0:22:15.640 --> 0:22:18.800 asked for help. That's part of the surrender of like okay, 0:22:18.920 --> 0:22:22.159 I need help, but we get more than we asked for. 0:22:22.359 --> 0:22:25.159 We get held in a way that we couldn't have imagined. 0:22:25.200 --> 0:22:28.720 I mean, in the smallest ways. There's this sense that 0:22:28.760 --> 0:22:31.680 there is a way that we're taken care of that 0:22:31.840 --> 0:22:37.200 is bigger than anything that we can plan. That first 0:22:37.280 --> 0:22:41.800 one is from the Kung Sun people in the Kalahari Desert. 0:22:42.920 --> 0:22:48.119 The Kung Sun call everybody like dog people and people 0:22:48.640 --> 0:22:55.040 be people mongoose people, because they recognize the relational nous 0:22:55.119 --> 0:22:58.760 of all of us to each other. In this one, 0:22:58.840 --> 0:23:05.960 Grandfather Mantus starts off trying to solve the cold and 0:23:06.119 --> 0:23:09.879 dark problem. It's Grandfather Manis who tells them to go 0:23:10.000 --> 0:23:13.879 to sun Man, who's fallen asleep. He's heaved into the 0:23:13.920 --> 0:23:18.000 air and hot, beautiful light cores from his armpits. Any 0:23:18.080 --> 0:23:22.600 person keep me trying, No, sir, you don't do what 0:23:22.640 --> 0:23:26.960 I do. One stay dry. Sun Man, mon Goose shouted, 0:23:27.000 --> 0:23:29.480 you must go up high in the sky. You must 0:23:29.480 --> 0:23:31.320 make heat and life for us, so we will no 0:23:31.400 --> 0:23:34.400 longer be cold, and so the whole earth will have day. 0:23:34.840 --> 0:23:39.200 Sun Man heard, He let himself, so there's that grace 0:23:39.320 --> 0:23:42.120 moment for all of us. He let himself grow hottest 0:23:42.200 --> 0:23:45.639 fire and let his tumbling turn him round as a ball. 0:23:46.320 --> 0:23:49.160 That day, sun Man became a bright circle of heat 0:23:49.200 --> 0:23:52.560 up high in the sky. Grandfather Mantis was proud. He 0:23:52.680 --> 0:23:57.640 tapped his old brown tooth. Look man is equal to me, 0:23:58.520 --> 0:24:01.960 who but I have them magic thin legs, shuffling in 0:24:02.000 --> 0:24:04.840 the dust and head nodding. He began a gay and 0:24:05.000 --> 0:24:10.159 boastful dance. And then you have the girl who married 0:24:10.200 --> 0:24:13.879 the son from the Luya people of Kenya and Uganda. 0:24:14.680 --> 0:24:17.200 The Sun lives on the other side of the sky 0:24:18.040 --> 0:24:21.920 and gets very interested in this beautiful young woman who 0:24:22.320 --> 0:24:26.040 is lost in the woods. She's runaway, she doesn't want 0:24:26.040 --> 0:24:29.879 to marry, and this rope descends from heaven and she 0:24:29.960 --> 0:24:32.640 doesn't even notice it at first, but it's just dangling there, 0:24:32.680 --> 0:24:36.920 and she grasps it. She's lifted up into the land 0:24:36.960 --> 0:24:40.280 of the Sun. He, in order to woo her, gives 0:24:40.800 --> 0:24:45.800 her his rays shut up in a vessel, and she 0:24:46.320 --> 0:24:49.520 ends up taking the lid off that vessel so that 0:24:49.640 --> 0:24:59.160 it pours down to her people below. Sometimes the most 0:24:59.160 --> 0:25:04.080 gracious gift of all is an empty box. Let us 0:25:04.320 --> 0:25:10.560 borrow empty vessels, said Master chart century German mystic. And 0:25:10.680 --> 0:25:13.760 the et reat box, which in the next story is 0:25:13.800 --> 0:25:17.639 called the light Keeper's box, could be such a vessel, 0:25:17.840 --> 0:25:22.520 pouring out the spaciousness into which the new can flow. 0:25:23.400 --> 0:25:27.240 So there's that grace again of being willing to give 0:25:27.440 --> 0:25:32.680 away without any promise of return, and there is no promise. Really, 0:25:32.840 --> 0:25:35.080 you might give away and not get grace. But there's 0:25:35.160 --> 0:25:38.399 something in the giving away that moistens I love. That 0:25:38.560 --> 0:25:45.119 line moistens the spirits of all beings with generosity and cooperation. 0:25:46.960 --> 0:25:51.280 The Lightkeeper's Box, which is from the Wadau people in Venezuela, 0:25:51.800 --> 0:25:56.720 that's a wonderful story about gift culture, giving things away 0:25:57.040 --> 0:26:02.720 rather than selling things, what anthropologist called commodity culture. That 0:26:02.840 --> 0:26:07.520 basically is a story about this chief sending each of 0:26:07.600 --> 0:26:11.440 his daughter's out to find the light keeper. The first 0:26:11.480 --> 0:26:14.520 one stays with deer, and the second one finds the 0:26:14.640 --> 0:26:17.920 light keeper, but there's arrows in both of them, which 0:26:17.960 --> 0:26:21.359 is again grace. Take the romance part out of it. 0:26:21.359 --> 0:26:25.879 It's about love and connection. Finally, the et red box 0:26:25.960 --> 0:26:28.720 and it's light get hurled into the sky, but it's 0:26:28.760 --> 0:26:33.960 moving too fast, and so the chief sends turtle up 0:26:34.080 --> 0:26:39.600 to befriend the light and because turtle moves slowly, Sun 0:26:39.640 --> 0:26:44.399 has to slow down and wait for turtle. This is 0:26:44.400 --> 0:26:48.639 of course from an equatorial region that moves at turtles pace, 0:26:49.119 --> 0:26:50.679 as the end of the story says, so that the 0:26:50.800 --> 0:26:54.760 day lasts just long enough until the night comes to 0:26:54.800 --> 0:27:03.879 the world by the Orinoco River on this war empty dream. 0:27:10.040 --> 0:27:12.560 And then Labe Fauna and the Royal Child of Light. 0:27:13.760 --> 0:27:18.760 So Italy has the counterpart to Santa Claus, an old 0:27:18.760 --> 0:27:22.879 witchy woman who rides a broom called labe Fauna, and 0:27:23.040 --> 0:27:28.400 she rides around each year looking for the child of Light. 0:27:29.119 --> 0:27:33.919 And she leaves sweeps at every house in case the 0:27:34.080 --> 0:27:38.119 child inside is the child who will light up the world. 0:27:40.320 --> 0:27:43.760 That's again that kind of grace, like it isn't just 0:27:44.080 --> 0:27:50.720 one child stick around after the break to hear Caroline 0:27:50.720 --> 0:28:03.480 read a couple of selections from her book. Can I 0:28:03.520 --> 0:28:06.679 read you a paragraph? You can read me anything, alright, 0:28:06.760 --> 0:28:12.440 you can read me the whole book. Collected here, one 0:28:12.600 --> 0:28:15.440 for each of the twelve days that, for so long 0:28:15.680 --> 0:28:20.040 bridged one light cycle with another. Are my retellings of 0:28:20.119 --> 0:28:24.080 twelve traditional stories about light from all over the world. 0:28:25.359 --> 0:28:29.000 Not all these tales are literally about the winter solstice, 0:28:29.040 --> 0:28:34.159 though some are, but each illuminates our fundamental connection to 0:28:34.359 --> 0:28:40.280 light and its cycles of birth, death, and regeneration. Each 0:28:40.360 --> 0:28:47.520 crystallizes the significance of light's return each year. Like vessels, 0:28:48.000 --> 0:28:53.880 the stories carry us across the stormy, flotsamy slippery edge 0:28:53.880 --> 0:28:59.200 of night. We cross over in three different ways, by theft, 0:29:00.080 --> 0:29:05.320 by surrender, through grace. There are four stories for each 0:29:05.440 --> 0:29:10.440 kind of crossing. When our personalities clutch their old habits, 0:29:10.800 --> 0:29:14.600 the thief may have to grab what we otherwise won't 0:29:14.760 --> 0:29:19.560 let go. When are so functional egos find their orders 0:29:19.680 --> 0:29:24.240 scuttled some other deeper self finally surrenders to the new. 0:29:25.080 --> 0:29:30.120 And then there are those miraculous gifts, those blessings that 0:29:30.280 --> 0:29:36.200 shower down upon us. Read the stories aloud in company 0:29:36.200 --> 0:29:41.160 by candlelight, play the games, make the rights sing, the songs, 0:29:42.040 --> 0:29:46.880 revel together with the animals and the villagers snuggle in 0:29:46.920 --> 0:29:52.120 the egg of the dark. You published and never wanted 0:29:52.160 --> 0:29:55.240 you to do an audiobook of this book on tape. 0:29:55.720 --> 0:29:59.719 It would be fun, wouldn't it. I was looking for 0:30:00.080 --> 0:30:01.560 when I came across your book, I was like, this 0:30:01.680 --> 0:30:05.880 gotta it's gotta be. But that's a great idea. If 0:30:05.920 --> 0:30:08.480 you were going to read a story, I have to 0:30:08.800 --> 0:30:11.520 that that I would that I would ask you to 0:30:11.600 --> 0:30:14.680 just choose which one you'd like to do. I don't know, 0:30:14.680 --> 0:30:16.280 if I don't know, if there's all be surprises to 0:30:16.320 --> 0:30:18.880 you or not. But the two that that I would 0:30:18.920 --> 0:30:21.840