* Astronomy

Blobrana · L

RE: Winter Solstice

Blobrana · L

Time to celebrate the winter solstice

Move over, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and even New Year's Eve.
Those celebrations are just the new kids on the block, at least compared to the winter solstice.
Today, the Northern Hemisphere will mark the winter solstice, the shortest day (and longest night) of the year, meaning that the amount of daylight will gradually increase as spring approaches.
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Blobrana · L

Winter Solstice at Tromso

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Blobrana · L

Winter Solstice Conference

Martin Brennan the pioneering author returns to Ireland after 25 years to headline a Winter Solstice Conference on Sunday the 20th December 2009.
The Boyne Valley Revision will take place on Sunday, December 20th, at The Newgrange Lodge. Tickets are on sale now at 65 euro for the day, and can be booked by emailing sara@ebc.ie or by phoning The Newgrange Lodge on +353 41 988 2478. To celebrate Martin Brennan's return to Ireland, a celebratory dinner will be held at the Lodge on the evening of the event.
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Blobrana · L

Persistent clouds meant the sun did not manage to break through to light up the chamber in the Newgrange Neolithic tomb for the annual Winter Solstice.
The Winter Solstice, which takes place from 18th-23rd December, is traditionally celebrated on the 21st December, the shortest day of the year, and some 250 people turned up the ancient site for the celebrations on Sunday, while 20 people actually got inside the chamber.

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Blobrana · L

Winter solstice that usually falls on December 21 has been celebrated by human communities throughout the world for millennia. As many of the oldest civilizations have evolved between the Indus and Ganji rivers to the east and Tigris and Euphrates rivers to the west, where current Iran falls in the center, the celebration has been called Yalda ( aka Daygan) since antiquity. The word means (re-)birth of the sun.

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Blobrana · L

For thousands of years the Winter Solstice has been celebrated with fire and dance - and for 13 years Wath has held its own Midwinter Fire Festival to mark the occasion, with this year's Festival being held on Sunday (December 21).
Traditions stretching back past our Viking heritage to the mysterious Celts have taken place on the shortest day to try to rekindle the fire of the sun and to turn the ever-darkening world around to light once again.

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Blobrana · L

Like many Canadians, I celebrate the holidays by surrounding myself with family, friends, and graven idols of Loki Wolf-father, trickster god of Norse mythology.
Okay, perhaps "many" is an exaggeration.
But last weekend's Yule Fair, presented by the Montreal Pagan Resource Centre, proved that I'm not entirely alone in my appreciation of pagan seasonal celebrations, though I am remarkably uneducated on the subject.
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Blobrana · L

Hundreds of druids, pagans and tourists braved the fog and cold at Stonehenge at sunrise yesterday to celebrate the winter solstice, marking the shortest day and the longest night of the year.

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Blobrana · L

Iranians throughout the world will celebrate the longest night of the Iranian calendar year, Yalda, in a tradition welcoming the birthday of the Goddess of Love, Mitra.
Yalda, the last night of autumn and the beginning of winter, is observed in every Iranian family here or abroad with ethnic roots to Iran.
On Yalda night, which this year falls on December 21, members of the family stay together, narrate old stories told by ancestors, play traditional games and eat dried and fresh fruits symbolizing various things.

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