What Is the Winter Solstice?
The winter solstice marks the official beginning of astronomical winter (as opposed to meteorological winter, which starts about three weeks before the solstice). The winter solstice occurs once a year in each hemisphere: once in the Northern Hemisphere (in December) and once in the Southern Hemisphere (in June). It marks the start of each hemisphere’s winter season. When one hemisphere is experiencing its winter solstice, the other is simultaneously experiencing its summer solstice!
This is all thanks to Earth’s tilted axis, which makes it so that one-half of Earth is pointed away from the Sun, and the other half is pointed towards it at the time of the solstice.
We often think of the winter solstice as an event that spans an entire calendar day, but the solstice actually lasts only a moment. Specifically, it’s the exact moment when a hemisphere is tilted as far away from the Sun as possible. This is shown in the diagram below.
The winter solstice holds significance across a variety of cultures, as it signals the changing of the seasons. Some ancient peoples even marked the solstice using huge stone structures, like Newgrange in Ireland. In some cultures, the solstice traditionally marked the midway point of the season rather than the start of it, which explains why holidays such as Midsummer Day are celebrated around the first day of summer.
Another way to think of this is that on the day of the solstice, the Sun’s path reaches its most southerly point in the sky. For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, this means that the Sun’s path is as low in the sky as it can get—even at “high noon.” In the Southern Hemisphere, it’s the opposite: The Sun’s path will be high in the sky on the winter solstice—directly overhead at noon at the latitude called the Tropic of Capricorn, which is an imaginary line that circles the Earth, running through parts of South America, southern Africa, and Australia.
The word solstice comes from the Latin sol “sun,” and sistere “to stand still.” So, loosely translated, it means “sun stands still.” Why? The Sun’s path across the sky appears to freeze for a few days before and after the solstice. The change in its noontime elevation is so slight that the Sun’s path seems to stay the same or stand still.
The day after the winter solstice, the Sun’s path begins to advance northward again, eventually reaching its most northerly point on the day of the summer solstice.
https://www.almanac.com/content/first-day-winter-winter-solstice
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In essence, the Winter Solstice serves as a reminder of our intrinsic connection to nature’s rhythms and cycles. It beckons us to embrace the darkness, celebrate the gradual return of light, and find solace in the continuity of natural cycles.
The winter solstice is the beginning of a new chapter in your life. It’s a new cycle of birth > growth > death in everything in nature. What will come to life for you this year? What will you nurture & grow? What harvests will your work yield in the coming year?
Who knows?!! We can’t know. But there is so much hope & anticipation contained in the possibility of what those might be. Often, this promise of a new beginning has us feeling inspired to set goals for ourselves, and make promises about all the things we’re going to do in the new year. Changes we’re going to make.
But, it’s actually important you don’t put that kind of pressure on yourself right now. This is not a time for action, this is a time for deep rest.
Because your spirit is so tired.
It’s been a long, hard year. You’ve been through a lot. You’ve worked hard, and you’ve stretched & grown in so many ways. (Whether you can see this growth or not doesn’t matter.) Simply living on Earth through the past year … You have grown. And you are tired. It’s so important that you rest right now, to rejuvenate your weary spirit for the new year ahead.
WINTER IS THE CHRYSALIS STAGE IN YOUR PERSONAL EVOLUTION. :)
Winter is the chrysalis stage in the evolution of the butterfly. It’s the time when the caterpillar is wrapped up quietly, in the dark of her cocoon. To the outside world it doesn’t look like anything is happening. (And this is one of the most challenging things about embracing rest: to the outside world it doesn’t look like anything is happening. Our brains scream at us, telling us “you’re not doing anything. You’re wasting your time.”) But actually, deep in the dark, a quiet transformation is happening: the caterpillar is evolving into a magnificent butterfly.
This is the same transformation your spirit, and all of nature, is undergoing this season. To the outside world life is still & quiet, there’s no movement. You don’t see anything meaningful happening. But in the darkness, hidden deep inside, a powerful transformation is occurring. You are evolving into a whole new place in your life.
All the experiences & lessons learned over the past year are being integrated into your spirit & into your life. And you are evolving because of it.
Your only work right now is to be like the caterpillar. You don’t have to do anything. Just wrap yourself, all snug in your cocoon, and simply rest.
THIS IS THE SEASON FOR DREAMING.
You need to rest, so you can dream. Right now you are dreaming up the dreams of everything that will grow in your life this year. You’re dreaming up new plans, new ideas, new ways of being that will blossom & grow, and become bountiful harvests in the year ahead. The dreams of everything to come this year are being sparked in your winter’s rest.
Winter is the season when things are revealed by turning deep within yourself. Embracing the quiet & the darkness – recognizing that you don’t need to do anything for the magic to unfold. This is the season of receiving.
A NEW LIGHT IS BEING LIT WITHIN YOU.
The Winter Solstice is the shortest day, but it’s also the moment the Sun begins to grow again. The light of a brand new year is being lit, deep within the darkness.
And the same thing is happening in you.
How much darkness you have to go through before you get bright. (Unknown)
The dreams you are dreaming in winter are the sparks of new life that will grow in the year ahead. A new light is being lit within you right now, a new fire is beginning to burn. It brings with it new hope – anything is possible in the coming months. This is a time of pure potential.
And this is why it is so important that you take this time of rest so seriously. Your work right now is to rest – so you can dream up the dreams of everything to come this year.
Happy Solstice/ Christmas/ Mother Night !!!
Christmas, as most Christians knows it, is a colonialized patriarchal theft by the Church who “stole” it from traditional indigenous shamanic cultures from Siberia and Nordic countries of Norway, Finland Lapland, and the Arctic Circle and rebranded this ancient pagan tradition of SOLSTICE as the concept of “Father Christmas” which was originally MOTHER CHRISTMAS or The SUN GODDESS returning.
Yes, there is no real Santa Claus/ Father Christmas but there was a Mother Christmas.
Long before Santa and Rudolph led his sleigh of flying reindeer, it was a female reindeer who drew the sleigh of the Sun Goddess at Winter Solstice. How illogical that a father Christmas brought gifts and the return of light at the Winter Solstice—it was “Mother Christmas,” the ancient Deer Mother of old. She who has always flown through winter’s longest darkest night with the life-giving light of the sun in her horns.
From the British Isles, Scandinavia, Russia, Siberia, across the land bridge of the Bering Strait, she was a revered spiritual figure associated with fertility, motherhood, regeneration and the rebirth of the sun (the theme of winter solstice). Her antlers adorned shrines and altars, were buried in ceremonial graves and were worn as shamanic headdresses.
Her image was etched in standing stones, woven into ceremonial cloth and clothing, cast in jewelry, painted on drums, and tattooed onto skin. Reindeer were often shown leaping or flying through the air with neck outstretched and legs flung out fore and aft. Her antlers were frequently depicted as the tree of life, carrying birds, the sun, moon, and stars.
Doe, A Deer, A Female Reindeer: The Spirit of Winter Solstice. Long before Santa charioted his flying steeds across our mythical skies, it was the female reindeer who drew the sleigh of the sun goddess at Winter Solstice. It was when we “Christianized” the pagan traditions of winter, that the white-bearded man i.e. “Father Christmas” was born.
So this season, when we gather by the fire to tell children bedtime stories of Santa and his flying reindeer – why not tell the story of the ancient Deer Mother of old? It was she who once flew through winter’s longest darkest night with the life-giving light of the sun in her horns.
Ever since the early Neolithic, when the earth was much colder and reindeer more widespread, the female reindeer was venerated by northern people. She was the “life-giving mother”, the leader of the herds upon which they depended for survival, and they followed the reindeer migrations for milk, food, clothing and shelter.
Her antlers adorned shrines and altars, were buried in ceremonial graves and were worn as shamanic headdresses. Her image was etched in standing stones, woven into ceremonial cloth and clothing, cast in jewellery, painted on drums, and tattooed onto skin.
The reindeer was often shown leaping or flying through the air with its neck outstretched and legs flung out fore and aft. Her antlers were frequently depicted as the tree of life, carrying birds, the sun, moon, and stars. And across the northern world, it was the Deer Mother who took flight from the dark of the old year to bring light and life to the new.
For the Sami, the indigenous people of the Nordic countries, Beaivi is the name for the Sun Goddess associated with motherhood, the fertility of plants and the reindeer. At Winter Solstice, warm butter (a symbol of the sun) was smeared on doorposts as a sacrifice to Beaivi so that she could gain strength and fly higher and higher into the sky. Beaivi was often shown accompanied by her daughter in an enclosure of reindeer antlers and together they returned green and fertility to the land.
Many winter goddesses in northern legends were associated with the solstice. They took to the skies led by a bevy of flying animals. One tells of the return of Saule, the Lithuanian and Latvian goddess of the sun. She flew across the heavens in a sleigh pulled by horned reindeer and threw pebbles of amber (symbolizing the sun) into chimneys. https://gathervictoria.com/2017/12/15/doe-a-deer-a-female-deer-the-spirit-of-mother-christmas/
The story of the reindeer came from the snow covered lands of Northern Europe where the people honoured Deer Mother. The reindeer is the only deer where the female is larger than the stag. Both male and female reindeer have antlers, but only the female retains her antlers in winter. Much like elephants, the oldest matriarch leads the herd. For the Sami people in northern Scandinavia, life depends on following the herds. There is an ancient marriage between the deer and the people. Deer bring life. On winter solstice, Deer Mother takes to the skies, carrying the light of the sun in her antlers, bringing rebirth to the land.
The cult of the deer stretches back 14,000 years and reaches across Asia, North America and most of Europe. There were a number of goddesses associated with the deer. One of these is Saule the sun goddess from Latvia and Lithuania. Saule rides across the sky at midwinter in a sleigh lead by reindeer. She weeps her tears (sacred waters) and each tear is forged into amber which she throws down to the people along with apples (often associated with fertility and eternal life). Deer mother is so enduring that she found her way into our modern myths and stories, even if obscured behind the Patriarchal wash over her most holy act. https://www.honeybeewild.com/journal/deermother
UNIVERSE 
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