Happy Winter Solstice!

 Today's quote:

We can be more like trees opening our crown to the Universe and rooting down deep with our feet into mother earth.

Banyan Tree in Lahaina Hawaii, after August 2023 wild fires. photo by Mary Foster

By Veronica Virag

A Pagan costume for the Green Man of the Trees

Oh how many castles in my imagination have I sent off in bubbles! You?

Solstice Night, by Sue Ellen Parkinson

I just skimmed some past Winter Solstice blogs...here's one about Celtic Symbols. I'll share more about Newgrange HERE.

The year before that, I posted this in 2012 , some doomsday predictions said that would be the end of us all, and yet here we are...

In 2019 this was more melancholy as I felt my love for my 3 sons, who all live distant from me. There's also a beautiful poem.

2020 I had another brief poem, and focused on the threads of life, including quilts.

For 2021 I included a video by Leonard Cohen singing Anthem.

In 2022 I finally learned how the tilt of the earth gives us seasons. 

The actual tilt remains the same,  23-1/2 degrees. Here's what I finally wrote when I understood it:

The angle always points the same direction as the earth rotates daily, and as it moves along it's orbit of the sun. So when the angle has the bottom of the globe pointed to the sun, it's summer in the southern hemisphere. And moving a quarter of the way around the orbit, the angle still points the same direction, but now the sides (north and south) of the earth get equal amounts of light from the sun...thus either spring or fall. And when it ends up on the opposite side from where we started...the bottom of the globe is now pointed away from the sun at the same angle, with the top getting more light...thus northern hemisphere has summer.

Big thanks for AC being patient in explaining this to my ancient mind!