Winter Solstice
Winter Solstice is the longest night, the shortest day.
Usually somewhere between June 20th - 22nd in the Southern Hemisphere, the Earth is tilting us away from the Sun. This year it will be today, June 21st.
The midpoint of the darkest half of the solar cycle, between the two equinoxes.
You see the Solar day isn’t precisely 24 hours long, we don’t have an evenly spread day - it fluctuates just as our energy cycles do.
Before Winter Solstice, the nights are creeping more and more into the day light hours, you see the sun setting sooner, and rising later, the dark stretching longer. Until it reaches it’s darkest stretch.
It is a time to restore energy to our roots and integrate the rot of the composting leaves that gather at our feet after the Autumn changes that came with the shedding of misaligned values and practices.
A season of flu and snotty nosed kids…
The cold is an energetic upgrade, a forced rest to put us to bed and integrate the change of seasons of who we are and what we are ready to learn.
An energetic upgrade comes when you are ready for change. First you are made vulnerable, exhausted and you feel low and miserable and then there is a sense of clarity. And you witness your energy rise as your body restores strength and you reemerge changed - in body mind and sprit.
You have a renewed purpose, aligned with your values…
You saw the ugliness that rises when your energy is down, when you are depleted you are not the woman you crave to be.
You emerge different then before.
Everything has a season.
After Winter Solstice the Sun reclaims strength, and grows it’s light to once again consume the dark.
The mornings greet us with a warmth that encourages us to rise and face our days.
The evenings begin to linger longer encouraging us to stay out and play longer, we are more socially open.
But we don’t need to fight the rest, the call to go within.
Know it is just a season
As the Yin feminine energy of the dark.
We can honour the masculine yang energy of the doing in the hours of light and then return to rest in the yin energy of restoration in the hours of dark.
It doesn’t mean isolation. it means integration, intimacy connection with self and our inner circle
With this we teach our children to value their energy and their limits knowing that they are able to go slow
Going slow allows you to reclaim yourself from the whirlwind of life.
Going slow is a rebellious act in this word that keeps pushing us forward.
Going slow allows space for you to pay attention to the child you have in front of you and really see their needs and get to know their individual love languages and how they respond to yours.
Going slow with the season guides you to find your own pace and style of being.
The Feminine energy of BEING rather than doing.
Going slow helps you see what’s really important to you, what makes a successful achievement and gives you back the joy in the small simple pleasures.
You get to be intentional and aware.
It brings respite from overwhelm and burnout when you surrender to your yin.
Your yin is not lazy, it is not selfish, it is not boring, it is not unworthy.
The oldest Pagan traditions of Winter Solstice are known as Yule, originating in the deep winter of the Northern Hemisphere December 20th - 22nd.
It is a festival of the return of the Sun, a time to celebrate rebirth.
Where the story tells of the Goddess giving birth to a baby boy who grows to be her masculine counterpart of God.
With evergreens as a centerpiece as they represent the everlasting life.
The Yule log, often the pole from the previous Beltane Maypole, is burnt in a fire that is kept burning for twelve days.
We can allow the fire element to take what we no longer need and transform them into the blessings that are awaiting us. By either writing on leaves or paper and burning them or simply asking the fire verbally.
You can make a lantern with the kids by painting glass jars and lighting candles within as they hold hope for the light returning.
Build skills of self sufficiency within your children as Solstice is traditionally a time of scarcity and surviving on your preparations. Teach your children to build a fire and fire safety skills - we are loving fire striking after our bush club session and we got the kids fire striking sets as a solstice gift.
Tonight we will make dinner over our fire outside, with hot chocolates and cosy conversations, telling stories.
Enjoying the snacks of joy in our rhythm, the winter solstice brings us back to basics of loving connection and caring for one another.