Happy Winter Solstice!

Cino said:
To all who observe, happy winter Solstice!
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I observe by default. I'm not a miserable old *** ;)
In fact, it is the only day of the year which has no public transport, here in the UK.
"Bank holidays" are not what they were, but Christmas day is still Christmas day.

PS. ..oh .. and Happy hols to you too :)
 
A year has passed... again, happy winter solstice! With a rare Jupiter/Saturn conjunction to top things off!

Saturn-Jupiter-Great-Conjunction-2020-9bda5bb.jpg
 
Cino said:
A year has passed... again, happy winter solstice! With a rare Jupiter/Saturn conjunction to top things off!

Saturn-Jupiter-Great-Conjunction-2020-9bda5bb.jpg
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Loved that Christmas Star! I recall the Jupiter/Saturn triple conjunction of 1981 with the middle of the three being right next to a Full Moon. It was a chilly night in February but very clear, making for a memorable sight for an astronomy buff like me.
 
wil said:
As the days get longer...we enter winter...momentum is a thing!
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Krisha Mitra Das said:
That's the first thing I thought of too. :D
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The old Roman calendar, traditionally ascribed to Numa Pompilius, originally had the year start on the Winter Solstice. This calendar had Leap Years but not the century rule, which skipped a leap year three centuries out of four, a better approximation of the actual length of a solar year. When Julius Caesar commissioned the Greek-Egyptian astronomer Sosigenes to revise the old calendar, which simply neglected having dates for the 60 days before the Winter Solstice (who needs winter?), it was discovered that the Solstice was now on December 25 instead of January 1. This was because of the slight inaccuracy happening over the centuries with the old calendar. December 25 then became the new traditional Solstice. Centuries later, in the mid 4th century CE, the date got assigned to Christmas.
 
Theosophist & Mystic G. de Purucker on this sacred time:

https://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/4sacsea/4sacsea1.htm

How it begins:

There are four turning points of the year: the solstices of winter and summer, and the equinoxes of the spring and of the autumn. The cycle of the year among the ancient peoples was always considered to be a symbol of the life of man or, indeed, of the life of the universe. Birth at the Winter Solstice, the beginning of the year; adolescence — trials and their conquest — at the Spring Equinox; adulthood, full-blown strength and power, at the Summer Solstice, representing a period of initiation when the Great Renunciation is made; and then closing with the Autumnal Equinox, the period of the Great Passing.
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Wishing all those who celebrate a happy winter solstice!
 
Yay! Summer's a comin', and Spring is on the way, the days are getting longer!

Sorry to be such a dinosaur, but I'm having a large Scotch. Or it might be an Irish ... I'm undecided!
 
Solstice challenge – just for fun – finish this little ditty:

Summer is a'comin',
and Spring is on the way.
The days are getting longer,
...
 
For 2023 the Winter Solstice in on 21 December, as is often the case. Here is HP Blavatsky on this ancient sacred time:

"We are in the Winter Solstice, the period at which the Sun entering the sign of Capricornus has already, since December 21st, ceased to advance in the Southern Hemisphere, and, cancer or crablike, begins to move back. It is at this particular time that, every year, he is born, and December 25th was the day of the birth of the Sun for those who inhabited the Northern Hemisphere. It is also on December the 25th, Christmas, the day with the Christians on which the “Saviour of the World” was born, that were born, ages before him, the Persian Mithra, the Egyptian Osiris, the Greek Bacchus, the Phoenician Adonis, the Phrygian Attis. And, while at Memphis the people were shown the image of the god Day, taken out of his cradle, the Romans marked December 25th in their calendar as the day natalis solis invicti. [Birth of the Invincible Sun]

Sad derision of human destiny. So many Saviours of the world born unto it, so much and so often propitiated, and yet the world is as miserable—nay, far more wretched now than ever before—as though none of these had ever been born!"
 
Thomas said:
Solstice challenge – just for fun – finish this little ditty:

Summer is a'comin',
and Spring is on the way.
The days are getting longer,
...
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Which means my wife will want the grass mowed, the shrubs pruned, and the patio scrubbed.

Oh woe and lackaday 😫

Happy Solstice to all 👍
 
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