Winter Solstice - need help from some of my Pagan friends...

[Maat]

I think. Want to explain the celebration to my 8-year-old. Any info.? Thanks in advance.

[arcane1]

1. love your user name!

will you weigh my heart for me?

[Maat]

3. So, you know that she was the Goddess of Justice ...

who decided who went where, right? Thanks. LOL! My husband found it. I was hoping that I had passed the California Bar, and would need a new name (changed from Law Student Mom). I will have to take the test at the end of February, however.

But Hubby said that, since I'm so judgmental (dictating loudly what is just, and who should go where, even if I need to weigh the heart) ... that it fit.

[arcane1]

4. yep, that's the one

:toast:

[displacedtexan]

2. Here...

(Scroll down)

http://www.religioustolerance.org/w_solsti.htm

[Maat]

5. Thanks.

Appreciated. It gets me started. She needs to learn something besides the standard commercialized Xmas crud.

We're Relgious Scientists (nature, science, and religious - it's all compatible), and we honor all spiritual paths equally. It's much like UU in that respect.

[hecate77]

6. In its simplest form, it is a celebration of the return of the light

Winter Solstice marks the beginning of lengthening days and the end of shortening days.

As well, another common connection made with Winter Solstice, in conjunction with the Wheel of the Year, which begins on Samhain (pronounced Sow-ain), is that this is the time in the wheel when the child is born (Christians stole this date and moved it out a few days in an attempt to usurp this date). The Christians did a lot of this, building their churches on native holy ground, taking our holidays and making them into their own, taking the idea of the Goddess and making her into the mother of jesus, and all that. But, I digress.

The seasons are the seasons and everyone has a right to use them as they see fit.

Back to the Wheel of the Year. It really is just a cycle of birth, growth and death, where you can equate the birth process with Winter Solstice or New Moon, or actual Birth of an idea, whatever. As the child, idea, whatever, grows, it moves through the seasons, so that in May, there is creation of new life (matching a person's coming into puberty and having sex), a fullness of life, say at Summer Solstice or Full Moon, a time for harvest, say at Fall Equinox, and a time for death, say at the halfway point between Equinox and Winter Solstice. The period after Death till Birth is spent in the underworld, or on a more mundane level, considering the results of the last cycle and planning for a new one.

I hope this gives a fair picture of some of the symbology that can be associated with Winter Solstice.

Wiccans usually think in terms of cycles, so this is one of our main tools for organizing our lives around natural cycles.

Ask more if you like. I'm always happy to talk about something more positive than our current political situation!

[selmo7]

12. Yuup

and that's why we put all those LIGHTS out everywhere on the trees - to call back and celebrate the return of the Light.

[stellanoir]

7. the simplist way to describe it to

even the most sophisticated of 8 years olds is as a celebration of the returning of the light. The old prosaic, "after the darkest hour comes the dawn, " applies. Thus some form of the festival of lights is celebrated in many cultures.

If your child is scientifically or symbolically oriented, also let he/her know that astrophysically, the Sun aligns itself with both the gallactic center and the solar apex (the direction in which our sun and solar system is travelling through space). So it's a sort of realignment of our planet with that which is most important: i.e. the greater good, charity, and what is futuristic and symbolic of our evolutionary growth.

Happy coming Solstice to you and your child !

[Maat]

8. Thanks! Thanks! Thanks!

This info. has been very helpful.

[PaganPreacher]

9. "Winter solstice and Christmas" for Pagan kids

Maat, I teach our children about the Solstice, and the religions that honor it, at this time of year.

Here is a condensed version, hope it helps (accurate for the Northern hemisphere only):

"For thousands of years, our people paid attention to the seasons. They measured the length of the days and nights, the summers and the winters. They made calendars to help them to remember special things.

Long ago, those wise people figured out that there was one special winter day each year, when the day stopped getting shorter. We call that day "winter solstice," and we eat special foods, light candles, and build a fire against the long, dark night.

There is a special day right after the winter solstice. It is the first day we can tell that the days are starting to get longer again, and we know spring is coming. Our people call that day "Yule," and it comes on the evening of December 24 and the day of December 25.

Other people call that day by different names, and celebrate it differently.

The ancient people of Rome worshipped a god called Sol Invictus, whose name means "the unconquered sun." His special day was the same day we celebrate Yule- 3 days after the winter solstice. The early Christian Church decided that Sol Invictus' special day was a good day to celebrate the birth of Jesus, so December 25 became "Christmas". The Christians also call Christmas "Yuletide," although most of them don't know why.

Some of our people's Yule traditions are celebrated by other people. The "Christmas Tree" and wreaths of evergreen are Pagan things. "Santa Claus" looks like the Holly King, even though he has a Christian name. Mistletoe and holly are powerful Pagan herbs, but people who are not Pagan still kiss under the mistletoe, and "deck the halls with boughs of holly."

Even if they don't know it, or know to thank us for it, people all over the world enjoy Christmas because of our Pagan people."

The Pagan Preacher
I don't turn the other cheek.

[ExclamationPoint]

11. very good explanation

Every child should here a fair and balanced look at the celebrations of the winter solstice.

[doni_georgia]

10. There is a Little Bear episode on the Winter Solstice that my kids

always enjoy this time of year. We're not pagans, but we celebrate the changing of the seasons and we always do something on the equinoxes and solstices. My kids still love this episode of Little Bear (we have the video) even though they are 10, 8, and 6. Here's a good web site on various traditions associated with the Winter Solstice.

http://www.schooloftheseasons.com/celsolstice.html