Dec 22 2008
Burning of the Clocks Ceremony
At last night’s Burning of the Clocks Winter Solstice Ceremony I finally started to ‘catch’ some seasonal ’spirit’. Up till now I’ve felt rather removed from all the crazed buying and spending and general panic.
I’m like that every year, actually. Since moving away (very, very far away) from my family in South Africa, I’ve lost some of the Christmas ‘magic’ and now am in a process of, with my own family, trying to find ways to rekindle that. I think the excitement on the Pibler’s face when he sees the Christmas lights around the city, and baubles on trees, is proof that the magic still exists!
The Burning of the Clocks is a ceremony unique to Brighton, organised by community arts group Same Sky. It was devised as an antidote to the commercial excesses of Christmas, and for the past fifteen years has attracted thousands of people. It involves people parading through the streets to the seafront, with paper and willow lanterns which are made in workshops leading up to the event. The lanterns are then burned on a ceremonial bonfire, while participants make wishes for the new year.
I went last year for the first time, with the Pibler as a newborn all nestled in his Close sling, and enjoyed the feeling of being part of something bigger than myself - and able to celebrate a turning point of the year with other people. I generally honour the Solstices and Equinoxes, Samhain (Halloween) , and so on, alone, and so this brings me back to a tribal sense of belonging, similar to that I experienced at the wonderful Out of the Ordinary Festival in September this year - the Pibler’s third festival!
We spent most of Sunday feasting and talking and playing at a friend’s house and it was so lovely to see the children all together - the Pibler gave a warm hug to his little friend (two months older than him) when he arrived, which we wished we could have captured on camera! We then all walked down together to the Laines shopping precinct of Brighton, joined the actual parades and walked alongside it as far as we could. We left before the fireworks as my friend’s little girl was frightened at the prospect. We saw it over our shoulders on the way home though. The Pibler had fallen asleep by then, hypnotised by the rhythmic drumming of one of the bands!
Tomorrow we are off to the West Country for our Christmas shenanigans, a long journey by train which is always interesting trying to keep the Pibler entertained - especially now that he’s walking! (he wasn’t walking last time we made the journey). But I’m looking forward to a few days of relaxing (hopefully) with my partner’s family and eating a lot of chocolate! I’ll try tokeep this blog up as much as I can.
