This is the time of year when Earth enters the Season of Solstice (one of two for the year) in Her orbit around Mother Sun.
photo: Glenys Livingstone 2008
For the Southern Hemisphere June Solstice is the magic of the peaking of the dark part of the day, and the turn/ return to lengthening light out of that fullness: it may celebrate the birth of all manifest form, of being, and the promise of ongoing Creativity.
photo: Glenys Livingstone 2009
For the Northern Hemisphere June Solstice is the awesomeness of the fullness and peaking of the light part of the day, and the turn /return to lengthening dark out of that fullness: it may celebrate the fullness of being, and the pouring forth of it, a fulfillment of purpose, a radiant giving away.
The two Solstices occurring co-incidentally as they do, mirror each other, as parts of the whole planetary moment. The Winter peaking of dark celebrating the Origins/Womb of all, which is at the same time a Flaring Forth of being: and the Summer peaking of light celebrating a Radiance, the shining forth of all that a being is, which is at the same time a dissolving of self. The Solstices – both Winter and Summer, may celebrate an essential Cosmic mystery of sacred interchange, a reciprocity at the heart of life, the relational quality of existence … as Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry have expressed: “to be is to be related”[i]. To be is to be in deep communion. Mother Sun may be a primary model for this deep communion, and generosity of being. This essential quality has been named by Australian Indigenous peoples as “ngapartji-ngapartji”[ii]: it is a primordial “Mother” quality, understood by all Indigenous cultures, and Earth-based religious traditions. It is She in Her quality of Mother who may be particularly celebrated at the interchange of Solstice – Winter and Summer: Her burgeoning fullness as dark birthing womb and Her burgeoning fullness as light pouring forth.
Adele Getty, Goddess:Mother of Living Nature, p. 33
Winter Solstice may be a remembering of the Space/Void/Night out of which All arises. So often in the christianizing of this Seasonal Moment it is the Child that is focussed on, and the Womb of All is given scant recognition; and the Mother’s gaze is usually upon the Child, no longer holding Her own integrity, but both are essential. Existence springs forth in every moment out of the dark sentience in which we are always immersed … it is an ongoing miracle of manifestation, in every moment, in every day.
photo: Glenys Livingstone 2009
Summer Solstice may be a remembering of the purpose/destiny of the fullness of being to re-unite with the Space/Void/Night; the remembering of the dark sentience to whom all returns, the re-union of this form we so love with All-That-Is. We accept even the passing of the Sun and may shine forth as She does. The small selves that we are may shine forth and are given over in an ongoing “Give-Away”[iii] in every moment, in every day.
The actual Moment of June Solstice @ EarthGaia this year is 21:44 UT 20th, or 7:44 21st AEST Australia which is where I am. For other global times see archaeoastronomy.com
For Winter Solstice poetic video: PaGaian Winter Solstice 2009
For Summer Solstice poetic video: PaGaian Summer Solstice 2009
If you are celebrating Winter Solstice, The Birthplace of the Universe may be an inspiring contemplation of our Origins, the Womb in which we are. And whichever Solstice it is that you may be celebrating, these short clips of Brian Swimme’s DVD’s may be nurturant of that spirit: Radiance and Generosity of the Sun.
Here at my place in country Australia, we will gather for Winter Solstice ceremony on the night of the 21st June, and I invite others in my hemisphere in this way:
At this time when the Dark part of day is longest, as Earth leans us away from Sun to the furthest point,
You are invited to celebrate
WINTER SOLSTICE
Darkness reaches Her fullness, and yet …
She turns, and the seed of Light is born.
This is the season for the lighting of candles,
and receiving the Gift of Birth.
The story of Old tells us that on this night,
the Great Mother gives birth
to the Divine Child
– the New Young One within all.
We celebrate Her eternal Cosmogenesis,
and the Miracle of Being.
O Holy Night
oOo
PaGaian Cosmology blogs for Winter Solstice/Yule
PaGaian Cosmology blogs for Summer Solstice/Litha
Some Winter and Summer Solstice story may be found in Appendix F of PaGaian Cosmology, or if you have a paper version of the book there is an Index for references throughout. These Seasonal Moments in relationship to the whole Wheel of the Year may be found in Chapter 5, and ceremonial scripts are offered in Chapter 7, which may be adapted to regional and personal poetics. The on-line versions are different from those in the paper copy of the book, as they have varied and evolved.
You may enjoy the Winter or Summer Solstice tracks on PaGaian Cosmology Meditations CDs – available for purchase individually in digital format – to nurture your meditations and participation in this Seasonal transition. They may be useful for a group also.
There is a PaGaian Cosmology Facebook group where all members may initiate discussion and/or respond, and also a Pagaian Cosmology Facebook Page … which you are welcome to “Like”.
To be on the list for notice of Seasonal Moments @ EarthGaia, and/or Southern Hemisphere Seasonal news, please contact Glenys Livingstone.
NOTES:
[i] Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry, The Universe Story, p.77.
[ii] for more on this term see PaGaian Cosmology Chapter 8, p. 256, or this essay: ngapartji-ngapartji: the Magic of ToGaianess, by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.
[iii] As Starhawk describes Summer Solstice, The Spiral Dance p. 244.
REFERENCES:
Getty, Adele. Goddess: Mother of Living Nature. London: Thames and Hudson, 1990.
Livingstone, Glenys. PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. NE: iUniverse, 2005.
Starhawk. The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess. NY: Harper and Row, 1999.
Swimme, Brian and Berry, Thomas. The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era. New York: HarperCollins, 1992.
PaGaian Cosmology 
Lovely Glenys, I love seeing the photos of the Mooncourt and your inspiring messages.
Bright Blessings,
Bev
Bev has spoken for me. Thank you both.
You wrote above – ‘The on-line versions are different from those in the paper copy of the book, as they have varied and evolved.’ Later you refer to the Spiral Dance.
Donna Earth not only turns and returns to the beginning of Her year-long dance but She also evolves, travels, becomes wiser with every turn as we do. The same point in Her orbit is not the same point in Space because the whole System travels, so that She describes a Spiral in Space. Knowledge, including self-knowledge, advances with every turn. She is not who She was at this point a year ago. Thankfully the scars of yesteryear are healing in the darkness where the rhyzomes and the mycelia are soothing Her wounds and renewing Her flesh.
Hera the Galaxy whose breast-milk of stars is splashed across the sky turns likewise, though much more slowly, requiring 200 million years to make Her full turn. Life grows within Her too, our Earth is just one of Her daughters. I am confident we will find that Hera the Galaxy too is as full of life as our Donna Earth is.
Does the whole Universe turn, evolve? It is too big for us to see, but I believe that Sile [She-lah) too evolves. The Sacred Spiral is triple, as our ancestors knew, though bound together. Once Sile was super-hot, too hot for even an atom to survive there, now She is the home not only of atoms but of life, of self-awareness. Where is She headed? Those who say that the learning is finished, that Her words to us in the Scriptures are written and finished, never to change, are mistaken. Her message is only beginning. Its later chapters will be glorious.
wow Aidan … beautiful vision; and yes perhaps She is only yet beginning. Thank you