“This is the solstice, the still point of the sun, its cusp and midnight, the year’s threshold and unlocking, where the past lets go of and becomes the future; the place of caught breath.” Margaret Atwood
“Solstice” comes from the Latin solstitium, which means the sun stands still. This refers to the sun’s position in the sky relative to the horizon at noon, which rises and falls throughout the year and appears to pause in the days surrounding the solstice. In ancient times, this was a pivotal event for cultures living in cold, northern latitudes. After the winter solstice, the days grow longer, the nights shorter, until the next solstice marking the return of summer. In modern times, we view the solstice as our position in Earth’s orbit around the sun.
The first day of Winter
The solstice also marks the first day of winter in the tradition calendar, but it seems a bit late to me as I write this from Colorado’s Front Range. We’ve had three snow storms this fall, accumulating over thirty-eight inches of snow, and winter hasn’t officially arrived yet! In a rare display of bipartisan agreement, the NOAA and Farmer’s Almanac both forecast a brutal winter ahead of us. Ironically, the Earth is closest to the sun during this season, but we experience cold weather in the northern latitudes owing to the shorter days and the low angle of the sun. Meanwhile, our friends Down Under enjoy their summer. If all this sounds confusing, I’m with you. I prefer the Latinate name hibernal solstice for this day to avoid any distinction to winter verses summer.
A time of death and rebirth
The death of the light during the advent of shorter days and the existential threat of starvation over the winter months weighed heavily on ancient cultures. The return of longer days led to many solstice celebrations and rites meant to herald the return of the sun and hope for a new life. For example, the burning of Yule logs welcomed back the light. And the Druidic celebration Alban Arthan celebrates the death of the Old Sun and birth of the New Sun. We can see this most famously at Stonehenge in southern England. The primary axis of this megalithic monument is oriented to the setting sun on the winter solstice.
In Ireland, the Celts built Newgrange during the Neolithic period around 3200 BCE, making it older than Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids. On the winter solstice, the rising sun shines directly along a long passage in the monument, illuminating the inner chamber and revealing a triple spiral on the front wall of the chamber.
Hawaiians have a happier take on this season
Halfway around the world from Stonehenge and Newgrange, Polynesians also mark this time of the year by astronomical observation. They viewed celestial events just as important as did the Celts and Druids. An adventurous seafaring people with superb celestial navigation skills, Polynesians perfected their seafaring and boat-craft techniques as each successive generation “island-hopped”, starting from New Zealand, then west to the Marianas, finally dispersing throughout the Pacific Ocean and settling in Hawaiʻi.
The ancient Hawaiian New Year festival, Makahiki, honors the Polynesian mythical god Lonoikamakahiki. The season starts with Makaliʻi (the Pleiades star cluster) rising just after sunset, usually on November 17. Early Hawaiians celebrated this season as a time for rejuvenation—a sabbath of sorts—and held great ʻahaʻaina hoʻomanaʻo feasts. They thanked the god Lono in honor of the blessings, peace and victory he brought to the islands. It was a time set aside for tribute, harvest, sport, and play. I guess the tropical climate and paradise setting didn’t hurt either. Given the choice, I’d rather have lived as a Hawaiian than a Celt who suffered through long winters, cold and hungry.
A day of historic discoveries
During the Makahiki season in 1778, James Cook explored and mapped the Pacific and became the first western explorer to set foot on the islands. He arrived at Kealakekua Bay, near a large heiau (temple) to Lono during a Makahiki lua. The sails and masts of Cook’s ship, the HMS Endeavour, resembled Lono’s Akua Loa, a long pole with a crosspiece hung with sheets of tapa, fern, and feather streamers. This led the natives to believe he was Lono in human form, but when Cook didn’t live up to the legend, it didn’t go so well for him. They killed him and scattered his bones. So much for their Aloha spirit, right?
Here in America, the solstice came with other discoveries. Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth on December 21, 1620, to escape religious intolerance and form a community where they could worship freely. And on December 21, 1968, the Apollo 8 spacecraft launched from Cape Kennedy, carrying the first humans to another world. On their fourth orbit around the moon, Astronaut Bill Anders snapped what is arguably the most famous photo taken from space, Earthrise. Just look at any list of the most important photographs of all time, and you’ll always find it near the top.
The beginning (not the end) is near
In the ancient Mayan calendar, December 21, 2012 corresponded to the end of a 5126-year cycle. Some people feared it heralded the end of the world. But in the end, the world still turned through winter solstices, and will continue for at least as long as the sun lasts. Perhaps the date marks the new beginning of an era in which we work to save our home planet.