(This festival fell at 3.46pm on the 21st of June in 2009. For information on the Southern Wheel of the Year, click label at end of post.)
Last year (2008) was my first Winter Solstice. I was fairly clear on the meaning of it (the god returns and the year begins a-new) but I was pretty shaky on the lore and on how to conduct an effective ritual.
This year I have a better grasp on the Wheel in general and my rituals and celebrations are not the comedy of errors they were.
I set my altar at home with a red cloth for the Great Mother’s labour and some early-blooming golden wattle. I marked the change from the dark half to the light half the way I did last year: by extinguishing a black candle and lighting a gold one. I did this at 3.46pm, the hour and the minute of the solstice in the Sydney region.
Once that was done I lit the mass of white candles I had set out in my living room. They made a blaze of light to symbolise the return of the sun. (And this year I opened a window to appease the smoke alarm.)
Outside the ritual I transferred my favourite Christmas traditions to Winter Solstice.
I wore musical reindeer antlers and sang my favourite Christmas carols (and ‘Here comes the sun’ by the Beatles). I had a roast pork dinner with crackling and apple sauce and a big bowl of hot custard. After dinner I watched The Hogfather on DVD and ate those chocolate balls in gold foil that look like miniature suns. I hung a solstice sock on the bookcase and filled it with a gold coin, an orange, chocolate and glazed fruit and opened it the morning after solstice night.
It was a very simple and pleasant Winter Solstice.
The Southern Wheel & the Wuruma Wheel
Winter Solstice is not marked on the Wuruma Wheel.
It is not the return of the sun that drives the Australian climate (and therefore the Wuruma Wheel). Rain drives the Australian climate. Sun we have in abundance, rain is scarce.
For a fuller explanation read the relevant article in Southern Echoes, a Druidry text.
The next festival on the Southern Wheel is Bride's Day (Imbolc) at the beginning of August.
The Wuruma Wheel festival called Wuruma Begins (the windy season) falls around the same time.
Wuruma Wheel explanation & dates
Southern Wheel explanation & dates
