Our BetterMost Community > The Holiday Forum
Celebrating the Winter Solstice
horo04:
--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on December 21, 2008, 07:09:53 pm ---I have completed the Winter Solstice Reading for BetterMost in the four posts below, and I invite your comments and interpretations!!
--- End quote ---
I'm very surprised Lee! I didn't know you had an interest in Wicca or paganism. I have been into Wicca for awhile now....now I just gotta find those Brokie Tarot cards you made. ;D
Jeff Wrangler:
Today is the Winter Solstice.
The older I get the more I get a feeling that there is truly something sacred about this day. :-\
Happy Holidays to one and all! :D
serious crayons:
Thank you, Jeff!
One thing I love about this day is that it's a turning point -- this is as dark as it's going to get, and from now on the days will keep getting longer and brighter.
Of course, it's also going to get colder and snowier before it gets warmer. But in winter, you have to grab onto whatever hopeful thoughts you can.
I suffer from a touch of SAD. I tend to feel a little down after Labor Day, and upbeat in the spring. I also gain weight in the fall and early winter, and often lose some in the new year. (Of course, it's hard to separate how much of that weight gain is light-related, as opposed to birthday-, Halloween-, Thanksgiving- and Christmas-related.) And when I do something outside on a sunny winter day -- or even drive in my car with the moon roof open -- I can really feel the power of light improving my mood.
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: serious crayons on December 21, 2009, 11:57:58 am ---Thank you, Jeff!
--- End quote ---
'Welcome, I'm sure!
--- Quote ---One thing I love about this day is that it's a turning point -- this is as dark as it's going to get, and from now on the days will keep getting longer and brighter.
--- End quote ---
Something like that probably has something to do with my growing sense of the "sacredness" of the day. I also find myself wondering how deeply into the human past knowledge of such natural phenomena as the solstices and the equinoxes actually goes. Who figured this out, and how did the knowledge spread? I mean, how do you calculate something like this is the "shortest" day of the year when you don't have clocks? How long did it take someone to figure this out? ???
--- Quote ---I suffer from a touch of SAD. I tend to feel a little down after Labor Day, and upbeat in the spring. I also gain weight in the fall and early winter, and often lose some in the new year. (Of course, it's hard to separate how much of that weight gain is light-related, as opposed to birthday-, Halloween-, Thanksgiving- and Christmas-related.) And when I do something outside on a sunny winter day -- or even drive in my car with the moon roof open -- I can really feel the power of light improving my mood.
--- End quote ---
I generally manage to hold off the SAD till after the holidays. The fall is generally such a busy time of year for me, and then comes the holidays with their own busy-ness and lovely traditions to keep me occupied, or preoccupied. I have tended to bottom out after the holidays. These past few years, however, the depression hasn't been as bad is at times in the past. I'm thinking that perhaps somehow I've just managed to keep myself busier these past few winters and therefore just distracted myself.
Incidentally, I've never been clinically diagnosed as having SAD, but I've sure seemed to have symptoms, so I just assume. One reason I bought a home high up in a highrise building and facing south: I crave that sunlight.
Heh. I think it's probably humanly natural to put on weight in the fall and early winter. Some ancient "race memory" from our ancestors--maybe even with a genetic component--to "feast" in the fall when food is abundant to store up fat for the winter.
Jeff Wrangler:
I did something new this evening.
Technically it was after sunset when I got home from work this evening, but there was still some light in the sky. I decided to light a bayberry candle in honor of the solstice, and let it burn down. This is something my family does on Christmas Eve. I don't know why I felt compelled to light this candle this evening, but I did feel compelled, so I did it.
The candle is in a pewter candleholder, and the candleholder is sitting on a pewter plate to catch any drips.
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