12/21/2023
Winter solstice celebrates the shortest day and the longest night of the year and has been celebrated for tens of thousands of years to represent safety and the life-force itself. Each year, December 21/22 signals the beginning of winter - but also a return to the light - as each day gets incrementally longer and full of more light. From this day on the light comes back more and more, day by day, almost imperceptibly.
Symbolically winter solstice marks the death - and then the rebirth - of the sun as the steady decline of daylight of the last six months is now reversed as the sun begins its long journey back toward summer.
Lighting candles, making bonfires, or burning Yule logs to symbolize the return of the light marks winter solstice as a glimmer of hope in the dark and a sign of life renewing even though we may not see it.
Something we all need in grief. ❤️
