We are creating our family traditions for solstice… I am looking forward to seeing how things grow and change (and stay the same).
This year, we spent some time on Saturday painting watercolor paper and then cutting out stars, a moon, and one giant sun. We hung everything but the sun on the branches of what was our gratitude tree.
[Let me tell you about our gratitude tree... On Thanksgiving day, we walked in the woods and found medium-size, twiggy branches, which we then stuck in a pot of sand to make a "tree." We cut out watercolor leaves and wrote what we were grateful for on them and hung them up after Thanksgiving dinner. So for Solstice, we replaced the leaves with celestial bodies. I am planning on using the tree throughout the year for different holidays.]
On Sunday, we never turned on our lights and kept them off until noon on Solstice (thanks to Jen for the idea!). We used candles in the morning and the evening, though we did leave the lights of our Christmas tree on, and it was lovely to have a lit tree be our only source of electric light.
On Monday — Solstice — we kept our lights off again. I meditated in the morning, opening my eyes every once in a while to look out the window and watch the light appearing. After we ate breakfast together, we walked down to the lake. We drew a spiral in the sand and each took turns walking the simple labyrinth… toward the center, to the dark days; in the center, on the solstice; and back out, toward the coming light. It was so wonderful standing in the middle, looking out on the water. Rom exclaimed while walking, “I am really feeling it!”
Then we did a ritual which had been our New Year’s Day ritual, but it seemed appropriate to move it to Solstice. We each chose two rocks. We dug a hole in the sand, and gathered around it in a circle. We took turns, the first person holding their first rock while thinking of the things he or she was ready to let go of from the previous year, and then putting it in the hole. Then that person held their second rock, thinking of things he or she wanted to invite into their lives in the coming year, and then they put the rock in the hole. Once we had all gone, we covered the hole, and then held hands in a circle and I said a little prayer.
We walked home together, and then we got home, we took out our giant, watercolor sun and hung it on the tree with the stars and moon. “We welcome the sun!”
Then we sat down together and I cut a giant pomegranate into quarters. We each ate a piece while I told the kids the story of Persephone, of her bond to the underworld, and of how it is dark when she is with Hades (in the fall and winter) and how it is light when she comes back to the surface of earth (in the spring and summer). The pomegranate was said to be what wed her to the underground, and by eating the pomegranate, we symbolically embrace this time of darkness in our lives. (Here’s a feminist retelling of Persephone’s story.)
Mica had pomegranate juice drops all over his face! At first, when I told him, “You eat the seeds,” he politely informed me, “I don’t eat seeds.” But by the end he was enthusiastically telling Rom, “I like seeds. I like really juicy seeds.”
I thought about how the seeds were a metaphor for what is awaiting me in the new year. I thought about how I have the choice to gobble them up or to chew absentmindedly or eat only some and cast others aside… or I can choose to eat one seed at a time, facing each moment for what it is.
Happy Solstice!
Thoughts for next year: I think I’d like to have more special foods, rethink the pomegranate/Persephone thing, somehow tie advent and daily winter activities to the solstice, go for a night-time walk the night before, and find wintertime and Solstice books and stories to tell the kids in the days/evenings leading up to the big day. I am so grateful for all the ideas and rituals I’ve read about in so many people’s blogs!
And, giving credit where credit is due… the lights-out idea came from my friend Jen (they do it for three days); the rock idea came from an article I read in Ode magazine (probably back in 2004); the spiral idea came loosely from the evergreen spirals in the Waldorf tradition; having a set of branches to use for the holidays came (I think) from Amanda Blake Soule, though I recently saw it on a blog (I can’t remember which one!) as a gratitude tree; the idea for the stars and moon and sun was mine (as far as I know); eating a pomegranate came from an old college friend who once brought a pomegranate to a dinner party at my house on the Fall equinox and shared the story of Persephone.
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I love the idea of breakfast with the lights out! My kids love candles/fire so much, we just passed eight nights of Hanukkah without any mention of presents!
What a magical time Stacy, beautiful. Peace to you and yours.
Lovely. Thanks for sharing your rituals. I really like the idea of eating by candlelight and the spiral walk. I also really could visualize your tree and it made me smile.
We have a Solstice candle we light at sundown and let burn through the night and into the day. Just before sunrise we bundled up and climbed to a high place, and with hot chocolate and sun cookies, we sang happy birthday to the Sun. It is magical.
Feeling such a part of one great spirit! Peace.
What an amazing celebration of the Solstice! I love it! I admire how intentional you are with each detail. I am going to use your idea of the "tree" for year round celebrations, I think it will go really well as an extension of our nature table. As another celebration of the Solstice…I wanted to let you know that you won the note card set over at my giveaway. Congratulations!
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That sounds simple and wonderful. I have struggled a little bit this year with our celebrations. It seems every time a holiday comes up a crisis also ensues. hehe This time our power was out and we had to leave our house. But, we have managed a few really fun things. Solstice is a lovely celebration and I hope in the future we can do something for that day. As a yogini, it is an important day to me, and this year I have been lead inward for lots of soul searching. Thanks for sharing your celebration.
Lovely post. I like the ritual with the rocks. Since we've missed it for solstice maybe we''ll give it a try for New Years.
As new parents, the first thing that my husband and I did was to shake off most of the traditions, if any, of our own youth. One that I carried on was getting new pajamas to wear to bed on Solstice.
I love developing new traditions for the holiday and the way that we celebrate it.
I really like your idea of keeping the lights off as you did. While I do light a lot of candles on Solstice, I never condidered what you're doing. Brilliant idea!
wow what a beautiful winter solstice ritual/s!!!! sigh- i LOVE the spiral in the sand on the shore.
perhaps someday I won't be working on winter solstice… i wonder if maybe I should take the big solstices off…. it would be nice.
Blessings! (ps- thanks for the persephone feminist link, i'm going to read it now!)
I love the gratitude tree. I think I'll have to try that:)
Wow, that's lovely. I love the spiral idea. I saw one in Mothering magazine that was made with evergreen branches and lit with candles.
What a beautiful way to celebrate the Solstice! I will have to keep some of this in mind for next year!
Peace to you, friend!
Loved sharing your day and such wonderful ideas; I'd love to include some in ours next year. We (carefully) did a small "fire ceremony" like the 3 stones and a space clearing with drumming/chiming/guitar in every room of the house. I also liked this from "Zach Aboard" (a link I found somewhere, maybe here?) and wanted to share: http://zachaboard.blogspot.com/2009/12/winter-solstice.html
Wishing you a lovely new year filled with peace and joy.
beautiful rituals…from a beautiful mind.
thank you for taking the time to share and explore…hazel
Happy Solstice and Happy New Year! It sounds like you did a lot of neat new things! Our traditions are growing every year also!
lovely post. must add you to my reader.
blessings for the new year!
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