Letting the light in

SOLSTICE: MARY RUSSELLhas always found a reason to celebrate the winter solstice, especially on the morning she was one of the lucky few to welcome the sun into Newgrange

HER NAME WAS Zenobia and she ambled along the main street of Palmyra’s ancient Roman way. Thousands of other camels like her had passed through Syria along this route laden with silk, dates and oils, bringing them from Baghdad and Tashkent to Aleppo to be shipped on to Europe.

Behind us was the great Temple to Baal, the sun god, and because it was the winter solstice, I had decided to celebrate with a camel ride.

Here in Ireland, with Brú na Bóinne, we have 5,000 years of astronomical history on our own doorstep. But there are other places where the solstice is celebrated. Britain’s iconic Stonehenge is one and remains of people cremated there date activity at the site to Neolithic times. Northwards, on Mainland Orkney, Scotland’s Maeshowe (pronounced Mays How) is a Neolithic mound similar to Newgrange with a long narrow passage leading in to a chamber where, during the winter solstice, the sun hits its back wall. The difference here is that while the magic moment at Newgrange happens at sunrise, at Maeshowe, it is at sunset.

1999 was the year I was awarded a precious place inside Newgrange. Waking in the dark, I heard the slow creaking of the earth as it moved through that long night, towards the sun.

With first light – and with the sun still well below the horizon – the fields glistened and sparked like fractured glass and our footsteps crackled on the frozen blades of grass.

A few minutes before nine o’clock as the rim of the sun appeared on the horizon, its light hit the floor of the chamber.

For 20 minutes, the shaft of sunlight pierced the darkness of the chamber, its edge sharp and clear. I extended my hand into it but so awed was I that later, I forgot which hand had been touched. No matter, I had been there.

Ever since then, the winter solstice is a major date in my calendar, which is how I found myself haggling with Zenobia’s dark-eyed handler.

“Madam,” he says reproachfully. “700 Syrian pounds is not much. We have to buy food for the camels, look after them, train them.”

“I’ll give you half that.” He shakes the red tasseled rope of the camel but doesn’t look at me: “600 Syrian pounds.”

“Five.”

“Six.”

“Five.”

“Okay.”

I look at the boy and try to guess his age. His skin is smooth and pure, his movements lithe and his frame slim. “How old are you?” I ask. “Seventeen,” he says. Perhaps he is. On the other hand, he could also be 25. “What’s your name?”

“Rabiyeh.” “Hi, Rabiyeh.” He gives me a sweet smile and the hint of a formal bow.

The camel complains about having to kneel down so that I can get myself up on to the big leather saddle decorated with red tassels and green ribbons. She complains again when instructed to straighten her back legs so that I tip forward and then her front legs so that I tip backwards but I’ve done this before and the familiar seesaw movement is really nothing for either of us to complain about.

Rabiyeh leads her forward and she snarls at him: “She’s just singing,” he says and smiles.

We settle down to an amble, the leather saddle creaking comfortingly as I rock backwards and forwards. Rabiyeh walks ahead, tattered red lead rope in his hand. And I can think of no better way to celebrate the winter solstice than to ride a camel called Zenobia along the main street of the ancient desert city of Palmyra.

We pad along in companionable silence past the remains of the Temple to Nebo, son of Bel whose job it was to care for the “scribal arts” for which I am grateful.

Rabiyeh wants to ride right out into the desert.

“Maybe I could ride the camel with you,” he says. “It’s a long way.” He tugs at Zenobia’s rope and when, grudgingly, she allows him to climb up, he settles himself on the saddle in front of me and instructs me to make myself comfortable behind him.

“Put your arms around my waist,” he says. Decorously, I reach round him and steady myself by holding on to the front of the saddle but this means grasping a large brass knob that is even more suggestive than clinging to this beautiful boy. He urges me to let go of it and put my hands round his waist. Finally I do and next I am invited to move forward on the saddle so that I am closer to him.

I’m not at all certain about this arrangement. Riding a camel in the desert with an unknown if beautiful youth could well be every middle-aged woman’s dream but the proximity of my crotch to his buttocks is unsettling. Should I throw caution to the wind, I ask myself. No, is the stern reply. The desert is littered with the broken hearts of European women seduced by the charms of dark-skinned young men. Margaret Fountain is one, Lady Jane Digby another.

And then, I hear a strange disembodied sound – my mobile phone. “Hi Mum, happy solstice,” it says, from my daughter in London.

I rein in my thoughts. Saved by the bell . . .

For info on Meashowe, visitscotland.co.uk. A marvellous book on the sun has just been published, including a whole chapter on the solstice: Chasing the Sun, by Richard Cohen (Simon and Schuster, £30)

SUN AND MOON

This year’s winter solstice also coincides with a total lunar eclipse. On December 21st the moon will enter the solar umbra at 6.32am, and the mid eclipse will be at 8.17am. Blackrock Castle Observatory in Cork is organising a viewing that morning, weather permitting. The next lunar eclipse in which mid-totality will be visible from Ireland is not until 2015.