Winter Solstice

The winter solstice is a pagan quarter festival when it is the shortest day and longest night of the northern hemisphere. The earth has been withdrawn inside her-self, after the winter solstice she will start to be awoken. At the moment winter is bring quite a lot of hardship for all of the natural world including ourselves. Very little growth will happen as the mother earth tightens her grip on us all. But deep with-in the earth roots are starting to grow, bringing nutrients and stability to all the plants and trees. In the coming weeks new buds will start to form on trees, bulbs will start to push up their new shoots as well. All of nature has slowed down, waiting for the energy to change and for the warmth to return. Due to the restraints of winter we too have slowed down and conserving energy. The time between samhain and yule (yule is Norwegian for wheel) is the dark time of winter and it allows all of to enter into dream time. As the outer world has darkened we can now experience the inner energies of the world within. We can now get in touch with our dreams and its a great time to make inner journeys for our wisdom and understanding. It has been a great time for us to lay down our own personal  plans and ideas which with the return of the active outward energy, all of these can slowly begin to manifest. This is the suns birthday and also a celebration of the suns re-birth after the suns sacrifice of death slowly after laying down seeds at lammas. Life will become more active from now on as the days start to get longer and  nights shorter. We are all part of this cycle as-well so we too are re-born at this time. We will then bring the wisdom of our own inner journeys out into a manifesting natural world, that will grow with the increasing light from the sun. This is a time to celebrate the active principle whose positive qualities of intellectual and rational thought, determination and assertiveness bring Independence and purpose to our lives. Happy solstice to everyone and i hope you all enjoy it.