Things that make me go hmmmm...

[dagibbs]

I have a goodly number of pagan (of one flavour or another) friends who observe winter solstice with an all night vigil for sun-return, where they keep a light through the longest night, until the sun returns. I've also observed a certain overlap between the goth and the pagan community -- so I was wondering, why don't the goth pagans celebrate summer solstice by holding a vigil for the return of the darkness, where they keep one (or more) pieces of darkness (perhaps sealed inside a box) dark throughout the longest day in order to assure the return of darkness through this longest of days? (Of course, you can't open your box of darkness to check to make sure the darkness is still in there, you just have to take it on faith that the darkness is still there.)

(OT: and that's LJ caught up. Tomorrow I go to work on my comics back-log.)

Comments

[mikepictor.livejournal.com]

Maybe you could open it in a dark room to make sure it's still there.

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

But once you closed it, you wouldn't know again.

[mikepictor.livejournal.com]

well...go back to the dark room and check again

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

Yes, but unless you spend all your time in the dark room (which might work, actually), you'd only have confidence at each interval you checked, but not in the intervening time.

[mikepictor.livejournal.com]

well if you need continuous validation, there is no helping some people.

Just check again at sunset, it'll be there, no worries.

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

For the winter vigil, you can continuously monitor the candles all night. So, to maintain that parallel...

[mikepictor.livejournal.com]

put unlit candles in an unlit room with no windows, and stay there all day?

[renniekins.livejournal.com]

but what if you opened it, and a cat jumped out?

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

*sniciker*

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

Gah, wish I could edit comments.

*snicker*

[mikepictor.livejournal.com]

I like sniciker better.

[curgoth]

That's... a good idea, actually.

[zenten.livejournal.com]

You could put a video camera in it, and what the darkness on a tv screen.

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

That would work for the techno-pagan goths.

Though, how would you distinguish between a functioning camera showing darkness and a non-functioning camera?

[mikepictor.livejournal.com]

it's supposed to be a box of darkness.

You aren't staying up all day waiting for the return of the camera. That's be silly.

[beable]

I attack the darkness with my wand of magic missile!

[beable]

Cheflad (Ambiviolent's husband) and I had an entertaining discussion the last time we kept winter solstice vigil about whether the summer solstice equivalent would be to sleep from sunrise to sunset.

Chef's tradition doesn't involve gaurding a specific light but rather syaing up to greet the first light and make sure it arrives, so the parallel of darkness in a box doesn't quite match.

Or you could loan a camera to Ansfrid and stay up all night waiting for the return of the camera. I like that one, actually.