Stillness in the Solstice

Winter Solstice by MomoftheBarn used by Creative Commons (c) Attribution

Winter Solstice by MomoftheBarn used by Creative Commons (c) Attribution

I love winter solstice. Usually I honor this astral marker through Becoming’s Dark of Winter ritual, which based on a friend’s solstice ritual.  This year, due to a massive snowstorm, that ritual was canceled.  I am off soon, though, to the friend’s solstice my Becoming ritual is based on.

The winter holiday season is always rough for me. Work always seems to be at its busiest and most stressful.  Families always seem to be at their most demanding. And, not being raised Christian, it’s chaffing to be bombarded with Christmas messages 24/7 for at least a month.  Most of my Pagan friends don’t have the same reaction because Christmas is part of happy childhood memories for them and they incorporate the fun stuff into Yule (trees, decorations, etc).  I don’t have that luxury.  Christmas just isn’t part of my DNA and what memories I do have from childhood are not good associations.

I don’t have any emotional or spiritual connection to the holiday of Yule, even though it’s on the same day.  To me Yule is a Wiccan/ Anglo/Celtic holiday. I’m none of those things.  Christmas is a Christian holiday. I don’t believe you can or should secularize it.  Oh, I celebrate with my husband’s family, but it’s not my holiday and my body knows the difference.

Solstice, however, isn’t a holiday.  It’s an astral marker.  You don’t have to “believe” in anything or follow any creed.  It just happens. It’s the day that reminds us the wheel turns, and we should turn with it.  It’s the time when it gets really dark and really quiet — if we let it.  In our current culture we fight the dark and quiet with everything we have.    I love the Hanukkah solstice story of Adam that ties the solstice into the lighting of the menorah.  I wish it always overlapped so we helped to bring back the light.  I think that’s what white Christmas lights are really all about. It’s about bringing a little light into our physically dark world.

Holy is the silence and holy is the sound
Holy is each one of us and holy is the ground

Holy is the darkness and holy is the light
Holy is the morning and holy is the night
~ from Holy Holy by Holly Taya Shere

So here’s to the darkest night.  Let’s not fight it, at least for this one night. Let’s be in the dark. Let’s be in the quiet.  Let’s see what happens when we shut everything off and have to just be with ourselves.  Who are you when there is nothing else?

1 Comment

  1. My plans for a midsize gathering all fell through, and by the dawn it was just me and a few candles, completely peaceful. There's definitely something so wonderful about taking some time in the winter darkness just to breathe, be slow and accept the fact of nighttime and the quiet journey back to the sunlight.

    Sort of a nice antithesis to all the commercial Christmas crazy, I think.

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