Happy Solstice!
Today marks the shortest day of the year here in the Northern parts of Earth, and the longest day in the Southern zones. My family is celebrating Winter Solstice with music, food, and candles!
I lit one of the small candles yesterday (Solstice Eve), and kept it lit continuously. I then lit the second small candle this morning, and also kept it lit. Once the sun went down today (which wasn't very long after noon!) we lit the main candle. The light is a reminder that we've now hit the darkest part of the year, and the sun's light is slowly returning back to us, a little bit each day. Winter is underway, but the darkest part is already over.
For you in the South, like my friends in Australia, hopefully this brings an end to your suffering through these heat waves! Your days are now finally getting shorter, and maybe you're due for a cool change.
Up here in Northern BC Canada, we're hunkering down for Christmas, New Years, and other assorted Winter festivities. Just about everything is closed down until well into the new calendar.
To demonstrate the difference 6 months can make, consider these 2 photographs of my back yard:
Summer Solstice, 21 June 2024, 11pm
Winter Solstice, 21 December 2024, 11am
Same camera, same settings, same everything. There was more light at 11pm six months ago than there was at 11am today!
I respect, enjoy, and appreciate the changing seasons. It's something unique to Earth's extremes, and not experienced anywhere near the equator. Only a small percentage of humanity is accustomed to living this far North, let alone thriving here and developing cultural practices around the changing of the seasons.
There's no beginning, and no end to the year. A year is just the 365 days between any particular point on the cycle. In many ways, Solstice makes a lot more sense as the end/start of each year, than the arbitrary "January first" we've all been ingrained with. Solstice is based on math, astronomy, and Nature. Seems logical to me.
So, happy new year. Happy Solstice!
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