Winter Solstice

Enter the night and you’ll find the light,

That will carry you to your dreams.

Enter the night, let your spirit take flight

In the field of ultimate possibilities.

These words are from Lisa Thiel’s beautiful Winter Solstice Song.

See and hear her work on YouTube. This song is called “Yule (Winter Solstice Song)” from the album Circle of the Seasons. It captures the mystery and magic of solstice and the celebration of the festivals of the Celtic Calendar year.

More and more people are acknowledging and celebrating Winter Solstice. Perhaps because it is the essence of a midwinter celebration without the overlay of commercialism that Christmas has come to carry. It takes us back to the earliest Festivals of Light. Yule logs (of fire and of cake), holly and red berries, mistletoe and so many other Christmas traditions began as Winter Solstice symbols. And Winter Solstice connects us to the earth’s cycles at a time we desperately need to honor and protect our world as its seasons blur in the disruptive weather patterns of climate change.

It seems so dark here in the Northern Hemisphere in mid-December, it is easy for us-even in these days of bright lights that automatically can click on when we enter a room-to feel the gloom and darkness.  Some perhaps even begin to feel as if the light will ever be bright and the days long again. It is no wonder that the Ancient Ones marked the solstice - this shortest day, longest night - and celebrated what they called “the return of the sun”.

The Celtic carol In the Bleak Midwinter captures both the despair and hope that comes during this period. Listen to one of the many versions on youtube for another musical treat.  This is a great illustration of how Pagan and Christians share the sense of awe and beauty that the deep stillness of winter instills and the hope that comes from the morning rays of sun rising from the East.

In Celtic Spirit, my characters visit Newgrange, the ancient monument where a beam of light comes through the portal, up through the corridor of stone, into the chamber and rests on a stone bowl at the far side, deep within this mound of earth crafted even before the Pyramids. As Timothy says to the group,  “’Tis more than a cathedral……