Celebrate the Solstice: Honoring the Earth's Seasonal Rhythms Through Festival and Ceremony

A couple of years ago, I put out a winter holiday greeting on the Web. Its purpose: to explore the ancient origins of the winter holiday season and its deep cross-cultural roots, and to help me give greater meaning to my own celebration at this time of the year. Little did I know when I began candlegrove.com that someone had already "written the book" on this subject. Richard Heinberg has collected archeological evidence, myths and folklore from all over the globe and throughout human history. His stories and examples resolve into a beautiful and compelling picture. Cultures the world over -- from ancient China to the megalith builders 5,000 years ago in Ireland who predate the pyramids -- from the Maori to the Maya -- marked the solstices and equinoxes as tremendously important temporal and seasonal thresholds with deep spiritual and practical meaning. Today, our modern, urban lives are in so many ways insulated and disconnected from the turn of the seasons and their importance in the cosmic dance. Are the solstices and equinoxes still relevant? Heinberg argues that they can be, and not just for neopagans or those of one brand of faith or another. I cannot evaluate his research, but his writing drew me in. With few lapses into over-poeticizing, and only a small measure of new-age, environmental hectoring, he gives us simple ways to renew the solstices as life-affirming celebrations to help reconnect us with the earth.