❄️

The soft gray of predawn covers all, as colors await the light. As Venus awakens in the east. As all this happens, yet once again.

On occasion, I wake in the early hours, not knowing the exact time. But I have found, if I cock my head just so, I can see the stars out the window at the head of the bed. And at this time of year, there is one particularly bright star, which once it has reached the corner of my window, I know we are in the third hour of morning. That hour, where it seems the brain can go rampant on endless to-do lists, or reflect too heavily on life choices, or engage in senseless worry. You may know this hour yourself. But then, I digress.

That bright star is Sirius, from the constellation Canis Major (the Great Dog). It’s the brightest star in the winter sky. It’s 8.6 light years away. And it takes 8.6 years for its light to reach my window. Such distances are hard to wrap one’s head around. And yet, I use that aged light for something so mundane as telling time. I could just as easily turn my head and look at the clock on the nightstand. But then, there’s something special in using starlight to mark one’s place, in space and time. It’s past informing present. It’s ancient and innate perhaps. And there’s a certain comfort in knowing one is a part of something larger.

A pink blush starts in the eastern sky slowly, but quickly spans all the way to the northeast, tinting clouds even in the far west.

When I was a younger man, I was labeled a photographer. And recently, going through some things, I came across some old black and white photographs I had made some 30 years ago, or so. Strangely, I remembered in detail the whole process of making them — from exposing the film to making the prints in the darkroom.

I recall, I was testing a new lighting system for portraits. And with a long cable release attached to the camera, I used myself as the model. Today you would call that a “selfie”. But as I looked at that young man in the photograph, who was intently looking at me, I started to drift back in time. That young man, with absolutely no gray in his hair, was my past, and I his future.

It took me back to a time when cameras were large intricate marvelous machines. Machines designed solely for the purpose of controlling light and capturing time. Fractions of seconds frozen. And darkrooms, with their subdued reddish light, were the culmination of the whole process — the inner sanctum. It was little bit craft and a little bit art. It was alchemy. Creating a photograph back then took time…a lot of time.

And now, I look over at my phone, and with a press of a finger and a few swipes in the app, I can do in seconds what took that young man hours to do. I look back at the photograph and wonder, would he be amazed or would he be saddened.

Suddenly there’s a small twinge, and I find myself missing the old ways. But a closer look at the photograph and I see I have bent the edge, or did I bend it 30 years ago? After all, it was just a test and images can be such fragile things.

The clouds in the East suddenly explode in all manners of reds and golds and colors that change so rapidly they would be hard to name. And if this action had sound, it would be deafening.

Light holds memory. We understand night and day because they repeat. We understand seasons for the same reason. We can comprehend a lifetime, because we remember.

And here we are at Christmas again. That season which is all wrapped up in lights and time. And stars, of course, come into play. I am so grateful that my mind has retained so many bits and pieces of Christmases past — snapshots. Some come back to me as vintage black and white and others as uproarious color. But they all play a very special part in the making of this Christmas. I now know, that time is not linear, for I move back and forth in my mind so easily this time of year. And everyone, past and present, is still there, again. So, here’s wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and let’s all make good memories, once again.

At last, a star breaks the horizon, our star, the Sun. Its light sweeps across the cold, warming as it goes. It is sunrise on another Christmas morning. And the light has returned.

❄️

Patrick Spirit, Christmas 2025

Stars and Light and Captured Time

HEAVY