THE WINTER SOLSTICE: CELEBRATION OF LIGHT

     Last year at the Winter Solstice, I had barely moved into my house and I remember laying in the snow in the frontyard, hoping my new neighbors we'ren't watching as I gazed up at the Lunar eclipse of a full moon. How magical. 

    The festival was called Satunalia by the Romans as they honored the god Saturn. Yule by others.  My goats especially love the notion of Joulupukki, a Scandinavian tradition whereby goats pulled Santa's sleigh.

      On the night of the Solstice, the longest night of the year, darkness triumphs then gives way to light. Some believe the Dark King is transformed into the Infant Light, the divine child Sun who is the bringer of hope and the promise of summer. It is the rebirth of the King of the woodlands, the Green Man, and the days begin to grow longer and will do so until the Equinox.

         art wrok by Anne Stokes

    The word solstice comes from the Latin words "sun" and "to stop", due to the fact that the Sun seems to stop in the sky. The Sun is directly overhead at "high-noon" on Winter Solstice at the latitude called the Tropic of Capricorn. In the Northern Hemisphere, the solstice days are the days with the fewest hours of sunlight during the whole year.Winter begins in the Northern Hemisphere on December 22, 2011, at 12:30 A.M. (EST).

 Winter Folklore 
Deep snow in winter; tall grain in summer—Estonian proverb
Visits should be short, like a winter's day.
A fair day in winter is the mother of a storm—English proverb
Summer comes with a bound; winter comes yawning.
Onion skins very thin, mild winter coming in. 

                         and to all, a magical good night....