'Midwinter' - The Winter Solstice

I don't know if any of you are like me, but for me the winter solstice - TODAY - is the most important of the four astronomical events that mark our seasons, two equinoxes and two solstices.  I hardly notice the equinoxes passing by, which isn`t surprising considering that the days are fairly equal then anyway.  Nor do I notice the summer solstice on June 21st either, because the days are then longer than I`m up anyway.

But winter solstice I do notice.  It`s the relief of the days suddenly starting to get longer, and I find that noticeable even within the first week or two.  It`s not `midwinter` of course, because there`s a lag in the seasons as we experience them compared to the astronomical events, and the main winter season is yet to be enjoyed here in southern Ontario.  But it`s a promise that spring is on its way, and that gets me through the two short winter months.

The promise of spring has been with us for thousands of years.  At the winter solstice the expanding darkness started to retreat as the light won the battle and expanded through until summer, bringing warmth and the ability to harvest plants and wildlife.  Maeshowe (above), one of the greatest burial mounds in the world, was built on Orkney about 5000 years ago.  Its entry passageway is aligned with the setting sun on the winter solstice.

We`ve been there (above) and seen the incredible stone workmanship that went into building this enormous chambered cairn.  It pre-dates the pyramids in Egypt, and is built of flat slabs of sandstone that you can`t even slip a sheet of paper between today.  How did they do it!  And how did they know which direction faced the setting sun on the 21st of December!

Of course we weren`t there on the winter solstice, but visiting it and learning about its astronomical alignment opened my eyes to the importance of the winter solstice marking the most welcome change of seasons in the year.

So watch for the longer days and be confident that spring will soon be here!

P.S. The four astronomical events are sometimes confused with the four Celtic festivals marking the changing seasons such as Imbolc, Beltane and so on.  In fact those four traditional dates mark the mid-points of the four astronomical seasons, such as the beginning of lambing in early February, half-way between winter and spring, and the beginning of wheat harvest in early August, half-way between spring and fall.