Winter (The Space Between)

I have written a lot of music over the years about the seasons, how I see them and how they make me feel, both instrumental acoustic guitar compositions and vocal songs too. I am sharing 3 of those songs with you now: Moonlight on Snow Covered Branches, Holly and the Oak and The Light of the Sun (On the Shortest Day)

I love Fall. The leaves changing color, the crisp smell of the air, the thinning of the veil between the Worlds…

I love Spring! Life seems to start over, digging in the garden and not always needing a winter coat…

Winter is the season between.

Winter has its own special magic. It feels to me like a space in time between everything.

Moonlight on Snow Covered Branches

The World where I live (near Cleveland Ohio and Lake Erie) is cold and quiet. The leaves from the fall are under the snow in the Garden, composting and helping my soil for the Spring to come. Sometimes the ice on the frozen lake piles up like giant broken shards of glass and frozen walls made of ice that look like river smoothed and rounded stones.

The Holidays in Winter: Yule, Christmas and Winter Solstice are so very powerful. Emotions run high, both positive and dark.

Families come together and sometimes break apart. Joy and pain, the warmth of the fire and the ice in the wind, the sweetness of love going into the darkness and the grief of loss…all tangle together like ornaments on a Yule tree….

Moonlight on Snow Covered Branches is an instrumental song about that very thing. The sparkle of diamonds like reflections of stars in the snow in the Moonlight. Something often overlooked in our busy flight from one thing to the next.

When you take the time to stop and really look and feel… how can you not breathe it in?

Holly and the Oak

Holly and the Oak is a vocal song from my latest CD “To the Faire” that again describes that place between. The time of the Oak to the time of the Holly and…consummating love.

Red are the berries, green are the leaves of the Holly tree
Orange is the sky of the setting Sun
My lady and I step from the grove as one
The Oak tree is bowing to Summer storms passing beyond the veil
Black is the sky of a starry night
My lady and I sleep in the grass as one in the night
Red are the berries, green are the leaves of the Holly tree
Orange is the sky of the rising Sun

The Holly and the Oak Brian Henke 6/23/2020

The Light of the Sun

Finally, the vocal song The Light of the Sun (On the Shortest Day).

Hope for a new tomorrow, the past disappearing like misty words in the cold wind…

The light of the Sun on the shortest day
On my breath like a cloud as it hangs in the air
With words that I say
Words that I say are all blown away
By the wind on the shortest day of the year

The light of the Sun and the wind on the snow
Revealing the green there below

Counting the hours is like counting Stars
Or counting heartbeats while dreaming a dream
A dream of tomorrow
Tomorrow the day will be longer
Like a ghost of the past, a promise of Spring

The light of the Sun and the wind on the snow
Revealing the life there below

The light of the Sun on this shortest of days
A dream that the wind blows away

The Light of the Sun (On the Shortest Day) by Brian Henke

As we head into 2023 leaving 2022 behind, I am reminded that we actually start a new year every day. The numbers of the days and years, like time, are really just an illusion.

So…Love and Peace and Happy New Year…every day… to everyone…

For more information about Brian Henke, including his collected articles here on Pagan Song, his bio, and links to Brian’s sites on the web, check out Brian Henke’s page on Pagan Song.

Pagan Song’s page on Yule and winter has many more articles for the season, Check them out!

featured photo of winter sunrise by Denys Nevozhai

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