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Bring the Light

Raymond

The opening song for the Solstice may seem simple, but it had a lot riding on it. It had to introduce the themes of the event – light and darkness, humans and their relationship to nature, and community.

Now, the world is not exactly lacking songs about light and community.  But there were some subtler criteria that we needed to satisfy.

  • Introduce singing to people, many of whom don’t think of themselves as singers
  • Launch people on an intellectual journey through history
  • Launch people on an emotional journey, from light to darkness to light again. Continue reading “Bring the Light” →

The NYC Secular Solstice

Raymond

Last weekend, I was on my way to the midtown, Manhattan. I was going to lead a Secular Solstice celebration, that I’d been planning for a year. Humanists of New York, from across the country, and a couple from oversees, were going to come together to celebrate how our species conquered winter.

As it turned out, winter was not cooperating. Weather was awful. My fingers were knuckle-white cold as I hauled a heavy electric keyboard through the slush.

But despite the weather, a hundred and fifty people came to the center of a city of dazzling light, that doesn’t go dark even on the longest night of the year. We sang songs together and listened to stories about humanity’s journey through history.

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Continue reading “The NYC Secular Solstice” →

Brighter Than Today

Raymond


This is the song that eventually led to the Winter Solstice, and humanistculture.com

For years, I had been looking for a humanist anthem, that resonated with everything I believed and made me proud to be a member of my species. There were plenty of great songs that almost hit the mark, but nothing that quite made me feel the way I wanted to.

Eventually I realized, if I couldn’t find what I was looking for, I could just write it myself. Continue reading “Brighter Than Today” →

stonehenge

Stonehenge

Raymond

The Winter Solstice is the longest night of the year. It ushers in a time of cold and darkness.

For young civilizations, it was a time when if you hadn’t spent the year preparing adequately for the future, then before spring returned, you would run out of food and die. If you hadn’t striven to use your tribe’s collective wisdom, to work hard beyond what was necessary for immediate gratification… if you hadn’t harnessed the physical and mental tools that humans have but that few other animals do… then the universe, unflinchingly neutral, would destroy you without a thought. And even if you did do these things, it might kill you anyway. Fairness is not built into the equations of the cosmos.

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But it wasn’t just the threat of death that inspired the first winter holidays. It was that sense of unfairness, coupled with the desperate hope that world couldn’t really be that unfair. It wouldn’t have occurred to the first squirrels that stored food for winter, but it gradually dawned upon ancient hominids, as their capacity for abstract reasoning developed, alongside their desire to throw parties. Continue reading “Stonehenge” →