By BARBARA CLARK
“Night, like a sacristan with silent step / passes to light the tapers of the stars” – Bliss Carman
Candlelight, friends and a quiet space.
Priscilla Jones helps pass the light along at a winter solstice celebration at Meetinghouse Farm in West Barnstable.
No matter how fast-paced and raspy the lead-up to the holiday season gets, there are still events on Cape Cod that you can head to for a breather, to reflect on the year that’s past and, more importantly, on the year to come.
One such place and time is at the Winter Solstice Celebration on December 21 at Meetinghouse Farm in West Barnstable, a seasonal rite of passage that’s been held at the farm for over a decade.
Past solstice events here have invited the public to “banish holiday overload” in favor of a time of “reflection and meditation” at the community’s spacious barn, in honor of this ancient tradition that celebrates the moment when the season of light begins to reclaim the dark.
Festivals marking the change from dark to dawn have been celebrated for thousands of years, at locations such as Stonehenge in England, where the massive stones were erected and aligned especially to honor this unique midwinter sunset, with specific rituals observed that mark the themes of death and rebirth. Sol Invictus—hail the unconquered sun! The Meetinghouse Farm solstice events in the current day continue to recognize and pay tribute to the ancient agricultural and societal imperatives of fertility, growth and renewed life.
The 23-acre nonprofit operates as a community farm with 35 individual garden plots grown and harvested by committed local community members who keep the property connected to its agricultural roots dating back to the mid-1600s on Cape Cod. The farm’s yearly activities follow the seasons, centering around its many volunteers and the fruits of the farm’s labor, visible in its flower and vegetable gardens, and in the community’s plant and bake sales, seasonal community meals and solstice celebrations.
Ellen Karel (left) shares a reading, with Tara O’Keefe, as candlelight reflects in the windowpanes of the barn at Meetinghouse Farm in West Barnstable during the winter solstice gathering.
The property, purchased by the Town of Barnstable in 2000, offers plenty of space for people to visit, walk their dogs, and gather at the barn and greenhouse to discuss current topics, whether it is the harvest, local politics or vegetable-growing tips. The work of the gardeners, other participants and a nine-member board of directors is made possible through the town’s purchase and stewardship of the property, where a visit to walk the woods and gardens can seem like a step back in time to a pleasing rural destination, offering a chance to recharge one’s spiritual batteries.
The early 2020s saw the opening of a seven-circuit woodland labyrinth at the farm, a welcoming location for sponsored or guided walks and for individual quiet time spent in an uncluttered outdoor setting. A tiny birdhouse-looking structure set up near the labyrinth contains a journal where visitors can record their responses and thoughts after walking the circuit.
Connecting with all these activities, the farm’s annual summer and winter solstice gatherings are largely the brainchild of the late Judy Desrochers, the former president of the farm’s board of directors and a longtime West Barnstable resident. She had long felt the farm would be an appropriate place to celebrate these ancient traditions, and the gatherings took shape during her lifetime, held each year over the last decade.
Warm wool is the fashion of the night as Kathi Cremeans passes candelight on to her niece, Maeve Parker, during a winter solstice celebration at Meetinghouse Farm in West Barnstable.
The December meetup welcomes visitors from around the Cape who come to celebrate the event. Board member Ellen Karel, who has organized the observance since Desrochers’ death last year, said the celebration honors the ongoing seasonal cycles of both dark and light.
What draws people to this moment? Karel said she thinks people come partly “for the sense of community and warmth.” The meeting, held in the farm’s centrally located barn, begins just after sunset on the “shortest day” of the year.
Various community members often take part in the annual gathering, including Tara O’Keefe, an interfaith interspiritual minister at Compass Rose Center in West Barnstable, just up the street from the farm. The Center, open year-round, specializes in grief support and energy healing. As she did last year, O’Keefe plans to share a meditation with the group during the event.
“Traditionally, (winter solstice) celebrations are very life affirming—greenery and berries, candles and fires, all the things that mark community and remind us to pause and connect with the season,” said O’Keefe. “It’s actually the turning point in the darkness. It may be the start of cold, deep winter, but it is the beginning of the deep darkness retreating. …On the other side of the solstice, the light returns.”
O’Keefe called the celebration “a wonderful opportunity to connect with the earth and the cycle of time—what the Celtic tradition calls ‘the wheel of the year.’”
Intentions for the new year fly up to the sky with campfire sparks at the winter solstice celebration, Meetinghouse Farm.
The gathering invites the group to share with silence, words and music. One year, there was music from a hammered dulcimer; another year, a favorite musical recording added festive notes. The circle of participants, which often grows in number as the hour goes on, takes place with lights turned low except for decorations on the holiday tree. Karel and other facilitators share readings, poetry or meditations. Attendees are invited to offer thoughts or comments, and then put pencil to paper to add their thoughts on a mindset that they’d like to “let go of,” as Karel put it, in the new year, or write something about what they may be most looking forward to as the light begins to lengthen. “What do we want to be open to in the coming year?” she asked.
Within the group, individual candles are lit from person to person, to celebrate a return to light, followed by a welcome cup of hot chocolate. Then it’s out into the night and a campfire near the garden area, to toss intentions and resolutions onto the flames, setting sparks flying out into the sky, to chase Orion.
Reflecting on how the event fits the activities and purpose of the farm, board president Earl Springer said that marking this ancient historical event is “part of the farm’s ongoing relationship to nature. It’s an offering to bring people together.”