ThothWeb - Your Portal to the Unknown - Sun Standing Still: Celebrating Solstice

This December, the Earth is actually 3 million miles closer to the sun than it was in June. It is the Earth’s tilt that sets the seasonal clock to winter.

At this time, the Northern Hemisphere slips farthest away from the sun, like an uncooked egg rolling to the corner of a tilted frying pan, creating the sun’s lowest arc in the sky from our perspective. At the exact moment when that arc is the lowest, and darkness the longest (this year it occurs at 11:35 AM PST, December 21st), for thousands of years, people have prayed for the return of the light. This is Winter Solstice.

Solstice has been an event of spiritual cosmological import in cultures throughout time. Solstice literally means “Sun Standing Still.” And as many know, the architecture at Stonehenge (built between 3000 and 1500 B.C.) perfectly marks both Solstices when the rising sun rests momentarily atop one of the great central pillars of the structure.

Older by centuries than Stonehenge, a giant circular stone building, Newgrange, in Ireland was built 5000 years ago to receive a shaft of sunlight deep into its central chamber at dawn on Winter Solstice. The light illuminates a stone basin with intricate carvings of spirals and solar discs. In another example, the ancient “Sun Dagger” site was built atop a nearly inaccessible butte in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico 1000 years ago.

At this site, three large stone slabs collimate sunlight in vertical patterns on two spiral petroglyphs carved on the cliff behind them. At Solstice, a narrow vertical ray of light moves downward near noon through the center of the larger spiral. The intricate constructions at these sights, and the hundreds of others like them that demarcate the Solstices, not only required an extremely sophisticated understanding of astronomy and geometry, but also illustrate the profound cultural intactness that was present in the lives of the ancient architects who built them.

Christmas was transplanted onto Winter Solstice, as Christianity spread throughout the globe. Earth and seasonal-based celebrations were labeled “Pagan”, and were not tolerated. In that process, we lost a deep connection within our celebrations, connection to the processes of our home planet, and to feeding the Spirits that keep the world turning for another year. We need look no further than to see what Christmas has become to feel the loss of sacredness in our cultural rituals. As a result, many people—of a myriad of spiritual and religious backgrounds—are looking to regain that connection.

Carrying on the tradition of recognizing Solstice in our modern-day lives can offer a new dimension to the “holy days” season. Ways of doing this include: keeping candles burning to pay homage to the continuance of light, making confections in the image of the sun, sharing myths and legends about winter, the sun, or renewal, or using bows of evergreen at home or on an altar to represent life’s continuity, and to celebrate abundance.

Solstice is a good time to reflect upon the closing of circles, and to learn from nature how to honor the darkness in life, while holding a strong faith in regeneration, and a coming time of new growth. Walking outdoors on this day is highly encouraged, as is contemplating what in your life is extraneous, as well as making strides toward releasing those things.

To honor the sun is to proclaim our dependence upon it. To know the darkness is to honor the cycle of death and rebirth. To feed the light is to hope for its continuance. To know of its path across the sky, and on what day it is to return, is to be connected to a tide larger than our own private lives.

Many cultures believed that without their mid-winter celebrations for the “Birthday of the Unconquered Sun,” as the Romans called it, the sun would continue to retreat, until we were left with only darkness. So on this year’s shortest day, perhaps we could take the time to pay homage, in whatever ways we can imagine, to that which keeps the whole world alive: truly the birthday of the sun, and the beginning of a new cycle! Blessings.

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