For me winter solstice in Asia means, (Dongzhi in the Chinese calendar), time to eat dessert, called 'tong yun' in Cantonese with family. Eating sweet glutinous rice balls isn't anything new in Asia in fact it's widely eaten through out the year! But today it is special because for Chinese we believe after eating the rice balls we are supposed to be a year older!
Contrary, this author having thought of something in him during Slostice was just candles. Obviously, I'm not living in country that has 4seasons! The author must be afraid of long dark nights! Thank God I'm in Malaysia, which Solstice didn't affect us! Remembering when I was in Bratislava during winter, the day was too short for me, I wasn't used to it as it got dark at only 4pm! Unlike London, night fall at 6pm...
Happy Solstice everyone! In just a few hours the Sun and Moon will conjoin right as the Sun enters Capricorn. A cardinal earth sign, making the start of winter and the beginning of the return of the light. In just two days from now Saturn will also enter Sagittarius.
Ever since I was a little boy I’ve loved candles. I’ve kept candles burning, or some form of golden, orange, yellow, and red lights near me, where I work and where I live, each day for many years. In fact, when I started the Nightlight astrology school, the reason I chose the name came from my love of candles and warm lights in the night. To me the symbol speaks for itself and needs no elaborate interpretation. “Stick with the image” as they say. And yet speaking around images does the same things candles do. Yellow white and gold black speak to the quiet in each of us, the flickering eyes beholding and the absent blacks of the pupils. The empty chairs of starry students and the algebra of nighttime fires in the sky. Simple questions and fickle awareness, rising over deep valleys of hot wax. Interpretations and flaming irises, framing and placing the soft cosmos beyond. The bigger the light the more the darkness illuminates: suddenly a flutter and then settling. Now back to white-orange light against shadows and sleep.
It’s true that the solstice gives us reason to celebrate. For another year lived, for another year learned, and for a new year to come. And yet the simple image of the winter solstice, without the past or the future involved, after the toasts have cleared and the wine glasses dried, is the image of a warm light, small, and enough, in the deepest dark. Not about the promise of what that means or what will come of it, no resurrection song…just the candle, here now in the long night.
Prayer: Darkest time of year, smallest light. Thank you.
Interpretation of winter solstice:
Winter solstice is an astronomical phenomenon which marks the shortest day and the longest night of the year. Winter solstice occurs for the Northern Hemisphere in December and for the Southern Hemisphere in June.
The axial tilt of Earth and gyroscopic effects of the planet's daily rotation keep the axis of rotation pointed at the same point in the sky. As the Earth follows its orbit around the Sun, the same hemisphere that faced away from the Sun, experiencing winter, will, in half a year, face towards the Sun and experience summer. This is because the two hemispheres face opposite directions along the planetary pole, as one polar hemisphere experiences winter, the other experiences summer.
More evident from high latitudes, a hemisphere's winter solstice occurs on the shortest day and longest night of the year, when the sun's daily maximum elevation in the sky is the lowest. The winter solstice itself lasts only a moment in time, so other terms are used for the day on which it occurs, such as "midwinter", or the "shortest day". It is often considered the "extreme of winter" (Dongzhi in the Chinese calendar), although in meteorology winter spans the entire period of December through February. The seasonal significance of the winter solstice is in the reversal of the gradual lengthening of nights and shortening of days. The earliest sunset and latest sunrise dates differ from winter solstice, however, and these depend on latitude, due to the variation in the solar day throughout the year caused by the Earth's elliptical orbit (see earliest and latest sunrise and sunset).
Worldwide, interpretation of the event has varied from culture to culture, but many cultures have held a recognition of rebirth, involving holidays, festivals, gatherings, rituals or other celebrationsaround that time.
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