Winter Solstice 2022

[White Man 1]

This thread is for discussion and pictures related to the Winter Solstice, set to take place on Wednesday, December 21st. Sunrise at the Tennessee campus will take place at 7:34 am and Sunset at 5:15 pm. The day will be 9 hours,41 minutes, and 38 seconds long, the Solar Noon falling on 12:24 pm.

I plan on catching the sunrise on the highest point I can find before I head out to the jobsite for the day's work. In the evening I will join fellow Alliance members for fellowship and supper, where we can reflect on the year past and look forward to the year ahead.

[White Man 1]

https://www.newgrange.com/winter_solstice.htm

Newgrange is best known for the illumination of its passage and chamber by the rising sun at the Winter Solstice. Above the entrance to the passage of the mound there is a opening called a roof-box. On mornings around the winter solstice a beam of light penetrates the roof-box and travels up the 19 meter passage and into the chamber. As the sun rises higher, the beam widens so that the whole chamber is dramatically illuminated.

Access to the chamber on the Solstice mornings is decided by a lottery that takes place at the end of September each year. All are welcome to gather outside the entrance to the Newgrange mound on each of the mornings from December 19th to December 23rd inclusive, sunrise is at 8.58am. Access via the Brú na Bóinne Visitor Centre or directly to the actual Newgrange monument.

Dark retreats before
the calculated caress
of sun's brightness.

Winter's hand pulls back
from a small ancient chamber;
light intensifies.

For a few minutes,
brilliance scatters kisses
before light recedes.

The night must return,
and we can draw light into
dark times if we try.

101dc6be6e81594ead66a3dfedd45402.jpg (63.03 KiB) Viewed 739 times

[Jim Mathias]

It's nearly time for you, Donnie and I to have a meeting, if that day is suitable for you two.

[Thomas S NJ]

It's nearly time for you….

I think you may have intended that for somewhere and someone else.

[White Man 1]

A beautiful, albiet cold, Winter Solstice sunrise

IMG_20221221_074155.jpg (2.18 MiB) Viewed 652 times

[Robert Burns]

It is interesting to me to consider what this day meant to our ancestors, even just in a practical sense. The Yule celebration was/is largely a celebration of the annual return of the sun. It will be cold in the coming months, but understanding the solstice comes with the knowledge that the sun is now returning, getting closer every day. I can imagine how that would be a source of hope and a serious cause for celebration in a time and place where it was not nearly as easy to survive the winter season.

We take modern amenities for granted, but keeping the fire burning in the hearth would have been a real concern in the winter back then. They didn't even have lighters, let alone heat supplied by an industrial complex. I can see how this season would have forced our people to come together and care for each other. Say your fire went out for some reason. Now you might need to ask your neighbor for some help to reignite it and keep your family warm. But maybe he doesn't want to give you any because you called him a fool for not agreeing with all of your opinions. In fact, maybe you're the town asshole, constantly gossiping about everyone and selfishly manipulating people, and now nobody wants to help you. Now you're not just a loser with no friends, you're actually in serious danger, because you decided to make an enemy out of your fellow community members who otherwise might have helped you.

Perhaps this is largely where the Yuletide tradition of gift-giving came from: the real need for our ancestors to help each other survive the winter. The women might have knitted people socks and hats, the men might have given people meat or furs from their hunts. Bartering could almost be seen as an exchange of gifts, but winter was generally a time of scarcity, so at this time people may not have always had something to trade in return for what they needed. The ones who had an abundance one year and were willing to give to those less fortunate would have been loved and celebrated. Conversely, those who were selfish would have been seen as a burden and a dead weight, and karma or natural selection would repay both kinds of people fairly for their deeds. Therefore, having an established tradition of gift-giving that the children could participate in, where altruistic children were rewarded with treats and miserly children were rewarded with lumps of charcoal, would teach them some valuable lessons early on that would ultimately help to ensure the survival of the group when those same children later became the new leaders of the tribe.

This next part is a bit of a tangent, but I wonder why the calendar year doesn't actually start on what we now call the 21st of December. I think it should. Of course, it doesn't always fall on the same day. Sometimes it is the 22nd. Still, it seems like it would be much more meaningful to mark the new solar year by a significant annual solar event, not 12 days after it.

[FolkishFreya]

It was a lovely day indeed, we exchanged gifts and prepared a meal & played games. Yesterday was mothers night an old norse or maybe Germanic tradition? Since I am new to learning these traditions I'm not sure exactly how it's done. I am open if you have suggestions.

The most important thing for me today was spending time with the ones I love and bringing back our true traditions.

The picture below is my attempt at making my own Yule Goat. To be honest, it looks pregnant and tired.

Happy Yule Comrades!

[Will Williams]

It is interesting to me to consider what this day meant to our ancestors, even just in a practical sense. The Yule celebration was/is largely a celebration of the annual return of the sun. It will be cold in the coming months, but understanding the solstice comes with the knowledge that the sun is now returning, getting closer every day. I can imagine how that would be a source of hope and a serious cause for celebration in a time and place where it was not nearly as easy to survive the winter season.

We take modern amenities for granted, but keeping the fire burning in the hearth would have been a real concern in the winter back then. They didn't even have lighters, let alone heat supplied by an industrial complex. I can see how this season would have forced our people to come together and care for each other. Say your fire went out for some reason. Now you might need to ask your neighbor for some help to reignite it and keep your family warm. But maybe he doesn't want to give you any because you called him a fool for not agreeing with all of your opinions. In fact, maybe you're the town asshole, constantly gossiping about everyone and selfishly manipulating people, and now nobody wants to help you. Now you're not just a loser with no friends, you're actually in serious danger, because you decided to make an enemy out of your fellow community members who otherwise might have helped you.it should. Of course, it doesn't always fall on the same day. Sometimes it is the 22nd. Still, it seems like it would be much more meaningful to mark the new solar year by a significant annual solar event, not 12 days after it.

Very good, Robert. Speaking of our "fellow community members," yesterday at dusk on the Winter Solstice few of us gathered at sunset to enjoy a nice bonfire, then fellowship around a group meal -- what will be an annual tradition in our Cosmotheist Community.

Yours truly took this photo
before several others in our
community had arrived.

I might add that day before yesterday I spotted a flock of 17 wild turkeys that nest on our Alliance property, one was a rare white.[/size]