Winter Solstice

Winter Solstice greetings, compadres!

This is always one of my favorite days of the year, when the mystical connections feel strong and deep. The long night is not threatening or depressing to me — I find it soul stirring.

This morning, the wind was howling around the house, as a series of fronts moves through the Pacific Northwest. The temperature is set to plunge tonight, and tomorrow is forecast to have a high of only 14 12 degrees, accompanied by at least a little snow. Then the Chinook blows in, and we will have temps in the 40s up to 50 degrees and rain. Sheesh.

I am hoping that this morning’s wind dissipates as the sun comes up; I planned on a good Frontier Partisan Biathlon today.

I was drawn this morning to Loreena McKennitt’s recent live performance of The Huron Carol. It was originally written by a Black Robe in the 17th Century, over the tune of a French folk song, in the language of the Wendat. English lyrics were crafted in the 20th Century. It evokes for me the northern woods, as well as the cross-cultural tide of the frontier of New France.

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The script is complete for the first episode of the King Philip’s War podcast series. I plan to record it in the depths of our cold day tomorrow, and it’ll drop during the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day — probably December 28.

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Let’s work the trapline a bit…

If you haven’t yet had a chance to watch Benedict Arnold: A Hero Betrayed, it is now available to watch on YouTube. It’s well worth the time. I think the creators are a little too sympathetic to Arnold, but their thesis is nevertheless solid. I particularly appreciated the depth of the coverage of Arnold’s naval exploits in the battle of Valcour Island on Lake Champlain. This is an under-recognized episode of the American Revolution — and another moment when Arnold can be said to have saved the Revolution.

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One of the great Frontier Partisan tales  of late medieval history is coming to Netflix on December 29, in the second season of Rise of Empires: Ottoman. We’re talking about Vlad Dracul’s defense of the Transylvania frontier against the expansionist Ottoman Empire of sultan Mehmed II. Rise of Empires: Ottoman is a docudrama that is considerably more drama than documentary — but I actually like the format quite a lot. I enjoyed the first one, which focused on the taking of Constantinople.

I have great hopes that the Great Siege of Malta will be featured in an upcoming season — though it’s more likely that we’ll get a series on one or the other sieges of Vienna.