The Solstice and our relationship to True North
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The Solstice and our relationship to True North
Each year we pass through the shortest day and six months later the longest day. These are the Solstices. On or around the 22nd of December the Southern Hemisphere experiences Summer Solstice, and on that same day the Northern Hemisphere celebrates the Winter Solstice. This is reversed at the opposite points of the year around the 22nd of June. It can be considered that the seasons of Summer and Winter actually begin on these days, certainly it can be said that the weeks which follow the solstices are the height of Summer and Winter, generally bringing the hottest weather of Summer, and in the case of the Winter Solstice, the depth of cold gains its grasp on the land after this time.
Whereas the Equinoxes are times of great change and of the greatest rate of change, the Solstices are when the rate of change in day-length is at its most gradual, and the seasons show this in their relative stability and consistency. The weeks either side of the Solstices vary only slightly in their day-length and the weather is most often more settled, especially when compared to the Spring weather around Spring Equinox which is often a very windy period for many northern and southern localities.
So why have societies and peoples around the world celebrated these earthly events and gone to great lengths to mark the exact date of Winter and Summer Solstice each year? Is there a significance beyond our earthly globe, and what is there to celebrate in these phenomena? Firstly, these dates can be seen for the alignment they mark between our planet and the Sun with which we orbit. The Sun is not only the centre of our Solar System, it is the life-giving energy centre that radiates light to all life on Earth. And more so, our relationship to The Sun is not only energetic, but also multidimensional, a mere physical representation of grander and subtler vibrations anent and within the Universe. The Sun is an energy centre that transforms energy it receives and ‘steps-down’ to a form that we can relate to as Human Beings on Planet Earth.
Summer Solstice is indeed a true celebration of the fullness offered in the longest day, in the warmth and joyful heat of summer, and in the expansion and expanded heights of our relationship with ourselves as gods. The bounty of summer begins at this time, as fruits ripen, the gifts of Nature are birthed in abundance, growth abounds. The Sun rises high into the sky above, as if to bring our attention to the heights of this very realm with which we live our lives on this plane of life. ‘Look up, and look northwards, move beyond the constraints of the previous cycle’.
The Solstices are both a time of celebration of the height of the Sun in its cycle with the Earth, as well as representing our relationship to the Stars with which we are aligned as a planet. The spin of our planet on its axis is not a fixed thing. The axis itself has an angle to it in relation to what we could call straight up and down. This is in relation to the plane with which we orbit the Sun. Although that angle is fixed to a certain degree, the orientation of that axis slowly shifts in relation to the Stars in the Universe. This is represented to us through the cycle of Precession, a grand 26,000 year cycle, where our orientation within the Constellations of the Zodiac shifts from one Constellation to the next every two-thousand years approximately. The Twelve Constellations of the Zodiac surround our Solar System, they are both the backdrop through which we observe the Sun, the Moon, and the Planets move through in their stellar dance across the sky, and they are Constellations which encircle the plane of our Solar System.
The orientation of the earth in space completely affects our evolutionary unfolding as beings on this planet. There are many aspects and many cycles of that orientation, and each of these has a part to play in our unfolding as Souls incarnated into Human bodies on a temporal planet orbiting a Sun, a Solar Logos, or God. The Solstices mark a particular cycle that is within these greater cycles, and the relationship between these cycles change also, illustrating subtle but profound shifts in the fate of man, or said more correctly, our return to the truth of what we are. The marking of the Solstices offers a snapshot of the earth’s orientation to the Stars with which it is connected to. Over the centuries this shifts as the axis of the planet moves in its precessional cycle. Currently the northern pole of the planet extended out into space aligns with Polaris, which is thus our current ‘Pole Star’. There have been other stars that have been in that orientation with our North Pole, Vega being the other most significant. Similarly at the Southern Pole we have had various stars in alignment, most notably the bright star Achernar holding this position centuries ago. Currently the Southern Pole star is Sigma Octantis. Together the Stars of the North and South Poles hold us to our ‘True North’, giving us a true orientation with respect to whatever cycle we are in as a planet orbiting the Sun.
Every Solstice, in particular every Summer Solstice, we are offered a reference point in our relationship with the current Constellation. The Solstices bring a sense of fullness, of expansion, and of reaching a high-point or peak, but without any push or rush. Remember, that the Solstices are the points within the year of least change in day-length, of steady solid being-ness, offering a pause to feel the depth of where we are, within the cycles of life and within the cycles of the Universe. All is to be felt and weighed, to be observed and honoured, and to be appreciated within the grandness that we are and that we are a part of. The Solstice is a mere moment within all moments, that sits within a stillness that is both grand and extremely simple. It can be seen as a stop moment, an all-expansive containment of the All within, and the All that we all are.
There is an interesting science associated with the movement of the seasons in relation to the cycle of the earth around the Sun with its four marking points of the Solstices and Equinoxes. Many will note that the Solstices do not seem to mark the middle of the seasons of Winter or Summer. Summer continues to heat up despite the fact that the days begin to shorten after the Summer Solstice. And this is true of the Winter, which continues to deepen into coldness after the Winter Solstice even though the days are actually getting longer. We could say there is a lag or a delay in the seasons in relation to the energetic truth presented through the Sun’s relationship with the planet which defines the Solstices.
This is similar to what we experience in the Human body. When we make changes, such as with our diet, or exercise, or medicines, or posture; it often takes a period of time before we notice any significant changes. There will always be an inner sense of the shift almost immediately, yet the body in all its interconnected systems will sometimes take days or weeks to process through the changes we have made. If we remove a food, such as dairy, from our diet, it will be quite a while before our sinuses clear and our tissues feel the freedom of such a cleanse. When a drug such as caffeine is stopped, we often feel instant withdrawal and the associated tension in our body, and we could interpret these pains as indicating that the removal of such a substance is not good for us at all. Yet a few days later we feel the body without the drug and the associated settlement is profound. Just like the earth’s ‘delayed’ seasonal response to the movement of the sun through the heavens, our bodies respond to the changes we make in our rhythms leading to substantial effects after the point of change rather than an instant response.
There is a correlation between the cycle of the Solstices and Equinoxes with that of the Lunar Cycle. Each month we all witness the movement of the moon through its phases from New Moon to Full Moon. This cycle gives us the month, and we are able to live our lives within the monthly cycle, divided into its four phases which gives us the week. The twelve months combined give us the year, although technically there are a little more than twelve lunar cycles in the year. This is because the year is based on the cycle of the Sun, rather than the Moon. Our orbit around this Sun is what the year is. The two Solstices would be the equivalent in the Lunar cycle of New and Full Moon, with Winter Solstice parallel to New Moon and Summer Solstice relating to Full Moon. The height of Summer brings the fullness of the Sun to our fore, in the same way that the Full moon brings the awareness of the Moon into our lives.
It is interesting to note how the concept of birth has been related to Winter Solstice, being the darkest period of the year. It is out of this darkness or unseen-ness, or depth of repose, that all is birthed. And so Winter Solstice in many parts of the world is considered the start of the yearly cycle, which for the Northern Hemisphere is the end of December. And it is here, where the early Roman church decided to place the celebration of the birth of Yeshua (Jesus) in order to overshadow the earlier pagan celebration of the Solstice. In our modern world the hype and consumerism, along with the pressures of family expectations associated with Christmas have stolen the attention of most of what would otherwise naturally be a celebration of repose and surrender to the new beginning that the Winter Solstice encapsulates. For those in the Southern Hemisphere, with Christmas being aligned with the Summer Solstice, the symbol of the Christmas Tree, of Reindeer from the North Pole, and all the traditional wintery foods inherited from our European roots, seem out of place in the midst of hot summer weather and long days and short nights of the Southern lands at this time.
All along, despite the imposition of Christian and other so-called religious ceremonies placed on top of the Solstices, let alone Humanity’s disconnection with it’s pagan roots and the associated cycles of the natural world, the truth of what these timeless celebrations remain. These cycles cannot be lost, for they belong to something that is intrinsically part of who we are as beings living on a planet that moves within these cycles. The Solar cycle which brings us these Solstices is wholly held within space in a grand planetary alignment, and this is our True North. Our alignment as a Humanity to the Stars with which our planet moves in relation to, aligns us to a truth that is unfolded in our everyday in ways that we do not need to understand nor comprehend.
It is simply through our honouring of ourselves as being within the body of God, of living our lives as equal members of a race of beings that are uncovering our purpose within the Universe, that we live our True North and our True orientation within the vastness of it all. We can never truly be lost as long as we hold this truth within.
The Winter and Summer Solstices of late December and June are simply points within a cycle that remind us of a basic truth within all cycles. Fundamental to all of this, is the concept of alignment, of orientation, and of flow and movement. The Solar cycle is incredibly simple. Our planet simply moves around the Sun according to a universal law, and the angles and shifting relationship of this relationship is always honouring of the entire Universe, is always aligning and realigning with what is on offer, or rather, what is impulsed forth from the Gods that are the living breathing essence of what the Universe is.
We, as a Humanity, of Gods realising we are Gods, are to simply be with this, to not question, but rather feel the innate beauty and divine order of this grandness that is the universe, within ourselves, within every particle, within every ounce of our bodies and beyond.
It is a divine beauty to adore. It is an expression of something beyond the temporal, yet it is found within the temporal, placed there for our unfolding path back to the source of it all.
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