Winter Solstice

Evening Crescent Through the Trees - December 2023

Look to the vast black sea above,
Stars glitter glacier-blue, 
four thousand years our elder,
heralds of our longest night.
Contemplate… 
fairy lights and candle glow,
talismans in the dark,
reminders of luminosity’s return. 

Winter solstice occurs this year on December 21 at 2:21AM Mountain Time. Also known as the hibernal solstice - “hibernal,” meaning of, characteristic of, or occurring in winter - it is when the sun has reached its farthest southern point over the earth. It marks the first day of winter for us, though we’ve been shoveling for weeks now, and the first day of summer in the southern hemisphere. 

Winter solstice is celebrated in different ways around the globe. There’s the Feast of Juul, where a large log (a Yule log) is burned in honor of  the Scandinavian god Thor, who will bring the light back to the people. In the Persian solstice festival of Yalda, the celebrants believe solstice night is when evil forces are the strongest, and so they stay up all night to welcome the rising of the sun the following day. 

For many of us, Stonehenge is the first place we think of for solstice celebrations. But it isn’t the only location by far. There is Newgrange in Ireland, built about 3200 BCE, predating Stonehenge by approximately 100 years. Newgrange consists of a mound with interior chambers, and was built to celebrate Alban Arthan, Welsh for “Light of Winter.” On winter solstice, the sun is at the exact position to fill the chambers with light. Catholic mission churches built during the Spanish colonial period also made use of the sun’s position on winter solstice to spotlight a particular object within the church.

Right here in the U.S. is Cahokia Mounds World Heritage and State Historic Site. It is the largest pre-Columbian site north of Mexico, had a population of roughly 20,000, and existed around 1050 - 1350 CE. There are about 80 mounds protected within the site, although there were more originally. The mounds were constructed to align with the sun on the solstices - one example of the indigenous understanding of the solar system. 

Sources/ Learn More

• Farmer’s Almanac: Winter Solstice
• PBS: Winter Solstice Significant in Cultures Across the World
• Cahokia Mounds World Heritage and State Historic Site
• Cahokia, Native American UNESCO world heritage site