The Coming Solstice

Readings and Rituals

Yule and the Winter Solstice

Excerpted from an article from New Eden Ministry Pages…

This image of midwinter stillness fits perfectly with the second station of the Wheel of the Year, the festival of the winter solstice known as ‘Yule’. Here the pendulum of the year hangs in space at the end of its swing, a moment of drawn and suspended breath when the rising solstice sun crosses the horizon at the same point on three consecutive days before starting its northward journey into the coming year. This is reflected in language.

The word ‘solstice’ itself means ‘sun standing still’ from the Latin words sol and sistere, whilst in Ireland, the solstice is angrianstad, meaning the ‘sun-stop’. This still point, the turning point when the world waits to see if a new year of light and warmth will be kindled, suggests a kind of holy pause at this pole of the year, something we can sense only if we step away from the fullness and busyness of our western celebration of Christmas.

The name assigned to the station of the winter solstice in the Wheel of the Year, ‘Yule’, like the summer solstice and spring Equinox, comes from Germanic roots rather than Celtic ones. This reflects a historical truth that in very general terms, the Germanic peoples placed greater emphasis on the winter and summer solstices as times of gathering and celebration, whilst in Celtic cultures the rhythm of the year was marked more prominently by the cross-quarter days, and in particular Calan Mai and Calan Gaeaf, Beltain and Samhain by the gaelic names.

The name ‘Yule’ in medieval and in earlier times applied to both the midwinter period of feasting and also to the midwinter month of December. Many of the original celebrations of this feast invoked Odin, the solar-eyed deity of the Norse pantheon. Amongst his many other titles Odin is named “Yule Father” and “Yule One” (‘Iolne’ or ‘Jolne’ in the older texts) whilst the gods and goddesses of Asgard are collectively referred to as ‘Jolnar’ or the Yule Ones. …

Although the New Testament gospels make no mention of a winter setting and give no solid clue to the timing of Jesus’ birth, the celebration of this event gravitated to the time of the winter solstice during the early history of the church. At the turn of the third century, Clement of Alexandria listed a range of calendar dates throughout the year that had been proposed as the day of Jesus’ birth, but there is a relatively brief gap from there to the first recorded celebration of Christmas on the specific date of December 25th, in AD 336. At the end of the fourth century, Augustine of Hippo then wrote that Christmas had been aligned to the winter solstice as “the shortest [day] in our earthly reckoning… the one whence light begins to increase”.

The move of Christmas to December 25th, the reckoned date of the winter solstice in the Roman calendar, is often seen as a strategic move by the church of the time, attempting to re-appropriate the day from the novel imperial cult of Sol Invictus, the deified sun, whose feast had been established on that date by Aurelian in AD 274. It is impossible to say, however, for how long before AD 336, and for how long before Constantine’s Edict of Milan in AD 313, the church had been celebrating the nativity at midwinter before that first recorded occasion.

The Signal of the Solstice

From a mythopoetic viewpoint, one that can connect a deep sense of light to the energy within us, and in nature, the experience of the light and warmth of the Sun gives our souls a clue for their best expression. The length of daylight corresponds to the time we are urged or encouraged to go or be outdoors in the light, and the sun also signals when it is best for our psyches or souls to seek the darkness for contemplation and rest.

We are now near to the days when we befriend the dark, so what could be said about the shortest days? They correspond to an in gathering, a more restful, more contemplative and focused energy- a time for reading, introspection, meditation, evaluation and for welcoming more warmth, comfort and quiet into our lives.

I suspect that is one of the psychic reasons that the crass, commercial crunch of Christmas is so hard to endure.

The reason for bringing your attention to these cycles and seasons of the Sun, and their potential effects on us, is my concern for the health and well-being of each of you as a spiritual and soulful person. In the fields of transpersonal psychology and theology where I make my academic home, it is affirmed and supported that when a person, or a culture, or a nation loses its sense of natural rhythms, cycles and seasons, it endangers their soul; it puts at risk our needed attunement to nature as sacred, which results in a loss of regard for our needs to nurture and reflect, express and create along with these natural cycles.

This year, this Solstice time, as far as it is possible, chose a more simple, restful, soulful Christmas-Where the warmth is spread, love is shared, and the thoughts and feelings of a sacred season of the soul can be known and cherished.