Winter Solstice Redux

I present this image at the time of writing, June 19, 2026, as a recollection and reminder of transformation and counterpoint to the arrival of the "summer" solstice, June 21, 4:24 a.m., 2026.

Mid-morning, December 21, 2025, the first day of winter, I had come to Squire Valleevue Farm with camera in hand but really in search of little more than solitude. Denatured of color that morning, the landscape had a spectral quality, shades of gray only, especially fitting for the year’s shortest day. A tenebrous sky obscured the sun, and a light fog still clung to small hummocks of meadow grass.

I had often walked the center path, a natural nave leading to the small barn in the east meadow. In other seasons I had photographed wildflowers and native grasses along the path, from the conjunction of emerging color with the spring equinox, through the vibrant months that followed until the hues were no longer visible by late November.

That gray morning no red-winged blackbird chimed, nor bobolink bubbled its song. Only a brief rushing sound as a mix of black birds parted from the top of a cottonwood, its bark long sloughed, its cambium layer dead and bleached. A mix, perhaps a score or two, of grackles, starlings, and red-winged black birds, hardly enough for a murmuration, ascended as one lingering bird broke from the flock, lighting on the barn’s roof ridge above me, the others disappearing into the slate sky. Moments after he landed, I took this photo, surprised he languished above the gable until I left later that morning.

As I revisit this image I am reminded of the Celts mystical, mythic “Otherworld” and the “thin place” between earthly existence and the spiritual realm. My hope is this image of the blackbird will evoke similar feelings to those I experienced in the sublime beauty of that colorless landscape and see signs of hope in this summer's proximate solstice.

Year: 2025
Location: Hunting Valley
Limited Edition of 20
Dimensions: 11" x 16.5"