By Carol Fisher-Linn
Countdown to the shortest day (and longest night) of the year; when the days start getting longer and colder – December 21: Winter Solstice.
We celebrate the solstice for a complete day, but it’s only a tiny moment in the day when the sun is exactly over the Tropic of Capricorn. This year, that time is 10:27pm, EST. As winter solstice visits on December 21st, Mother Nature brings with her days that get incrementally longer, yet colder in most regions (like ours) because it takes time for Earth to warm up – it’s an effect known as seasonal lag. Strangely, Earth is closer to the sun in January (some 3 million miles closer) than in early July. Despite the proximity to the sun, it is cold because the Northern Hemisphere receives less sunlight and has cooler temperatures in winter due to Earth’s 23.5-degree tilt. The Northern Hemisphere is tilted away from the sun in winter, and toward it in July. Because of this tilt, what’s very cool about this solstice day if it is clear, is that the noontime shadow is the longest it will be all year. It’s a perfect time for shadowgraphy, i.e., making hand shadows.
Shadows play a big part in celebrations of the winter solstice. They appear in the monstrous circle of stones from 3000BC at Stonehenge in England, and a huge 5,000+ year old tombstone located in County Meath in Newgrange, Ireland where only the first sunshine of the winter solstice can shine into the inner chamber of the tomb. They play a role in Peru’s mysterious 2000-year-old Nazca Lines (which can only be viewed in totality from the sky) where some of the lines appear to correspond to the winter solstice, as they touch the spot on the horizon where the sun sets, to Chaco Canyon in New Mexico (a UNESCO World Heritage site) where Ancestral Puebloans built a huge city 1000+ years ago where the sun strikes a particular petroglyph called the Sun Dagger during winter solstice.
Surprisingly, mistletoe was a part of ancient Druid celebrations. Yes, we use it to prompt Christmas kissing, but here’s what you likely do not know about mistletoe. The Druid priests believed that this parasitic evergreen plant that grows among oak branches is the soul of the tree. Hence, the high priest would climb an oak on the sixth night of the new moon after the winter solstice and cut down pieces of mistletoe, which people then wore for good luck and protection from evil spirits.
Again, in ancient times, Yule was a winter solstice festival celebrating the rebirth of the sun in northern Europe. People sat around the campfire or a Yule log and told stories while drinking sweet ale.
I love exploring the history of things, and this time of year, especially, I love the traditions – the baking, decorating the home and gathering with family and friends. But the spiritual side of me loves to connect with the sacred cycle of nature – in this case, the sun’s progress through the heavens on this momentous day, and to be awed and take delight in the universe’s mysteries.
Years ago, when the buffalo where still on Horn Hill, I would grab a bottle of wine and drive up late at night, park, roll down the windows, pour some wine and just listen and look. Sometimes, the skies were clear and the stars looked close enough to touch, with so many it seemed that one could scoop up an armful with one swoop. Always, I got in touch with my spirit hearing the groans, grunts and “conversation” of the massive behemoths who seemed to have a tender side at that bewitching midnight hour. As I’d sit and sip, I’d meditate on who I am as a spiritual being. For a moment, time would seem to stand still, and I’d find myself in absolute silence, between worlds. Driving home, I would be renewed. I rejoiced in the longer days stretching ahead of me knowing that even in the ho-humness, or drudgery of some of those days, I am so much more than just a human putting one foot in front of another on this earth, I have purpose, I have direction, I have soul, reawakened during this sacred solstice moment. Winter solstice reminds me that I am (that all of us are) spiritual beings, one with the earth and stars. After all, “we are stardust brought to life …” says astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson.
I wish you all a blessed winter solstice. Use the mysterious darkness to find your deepest self; celebrate the light and find your peace.
Shadows play a big part in celebrations of the winter solstice. They appear in the monstrous circle of stones from 3000BC at Stonehenge in England