Winter Solstice

 

Happy Winter Solstice to everyone!  That is, for those of you in the Northern Hemisphere.   The solstices and equinoxes are organic markers for the movement of the sun around planet earth.  The native peoples celebrated these yearly milestones.  In the American southwest, Winter Solstice is still celebrated as the start of the fertility cycle and the return of the sun.  On a lot of reservations, there are days of dancing and ceremony.

I regard this date as my new Year's Eve, and the next day as the start of my New Year.  I do not celebrate Christmas, and I always like to say that after the height of the solstice, everything quiets down.  It is a time for hibernation and the incubation of the energetic seeds that have been planted. 

So on Tuesday night December 21^st, I will do my usual bowl burning ceremony in my back yard.  I will be burning a paper on which I have written what I am releasing from the outgoing year, and my positive intents for the year to come.  I invite you to do the same, in your own fashion.