Our Winter Celebrations.

Celebrating Solstice is not something I used to to. Its something that I have recently found comforting when I realised I needed more. I am not in anyway religious, I consider myself a staunch Atheist, but I’ve been feeling like I was looking for something, needing something to feed my soul. I don’t mean soul to be anything spiritual or religious. I just mean that space that needs satisfying, the space that we feed and it makes us feel connected…. to the rest of the world/other people/nature etc.

There is one thing that we do all have in common, one thing that governs all our lives, human, animal, plants etc. We are all governed by our place in this universe, by the sun and our orbit, by the positions of the other planets. This fine balance, that if any of it were different, we would not exist like we do…….and maybe not at all. All religion aside, we have this in common.

These things, we are not taught through school. We’re often not even taught these things by our own communities. These things are learned through a desire to learn more about who we are and our place in the universe.

This year our winter celebrations have allowed me to understand our need for tradition and ritual, and consequently I have enjoyed this Christmas more above all others. Other years I have just been going through the motions, just doing what needed to be done, doing what is expected. This year I feel I’ve understood why. I’ve never been completely satisfied with celebrating Christmas in the past, always done it, but always out of obligation. This years 12 days of Christmas are a real celebration of the difference between the solar and lunar calendars……and I’m enjoying every day of it.

Make any sense?