Happy Solstice!
I love the Winter Solstice. I’ve always been fascinated by the movement of the sun, moon, and stars. When I was young, I loved sleeping outside in the backyard on summer nights with my brother and my cousins. Specifically, I loved looking up into the black mystery that is the stars, that pointillist painting of light which magically illustrates stories of Greek and Roman gods through the constellations and which somehow also functions as a clock that never needs winding and which has been silently ticking away time since time began.
But if we can train our vision, we might also notice that this royal procession of the sun, moon, and stars isn’t limited only to the illumination of the stories of Greek or Roman gods, but that your story is written up there as well. It’s the story of the divine light that rests inside of you. So that you don’t forget it, the sun, moon, and stars tell this story each year at the Solstice.
The word Solstice derives from Latin and means “sun stands still” and refers to the yearly rhythm of the movement of the sun as it rises and sets up and down the horizon. In the northern hemisphere, at the Summer Solstice (around June 21st), the sun rises and sets at its highest point along the horizon. Here, the days are the longest and the nights are the shortest. From that moment on, each day the sun begins to creep down the horizon each day until Winter Solstice when the sun rises and lowers at its lowest point, the days are the shortest and the nights are the longest. On both the Summer and Winter Solstice, for three days, the sun rises and falls in exactly the same place, appearing to stand still along the horizon.
I love symbols and relish this symbol of the Solstice, celebrating the moment when the sun, that which gives light and life to all beings on the earth, stands still for 3 days as if to say, “Whoa, hold up! Papa’s gotta put his dogs up for a bit, kick back, and watch some Neptune Flix.” After a good rest, it starts it’s long journey along the horizon again, just like it’s done every year for time immemorial.
But more than just rest, the Winter Solstice truly symbolizes a necessary and unavoidable death, and not just the death of its own cycle. It symbolizes a death for each person, the passing of everything that must and will die. The 3 days of stillness is the necessary mourning and composting period. It symbolizes our darkest moments, both in terms of sunlight, as well as the dark night of the soul. But the Winter Solstice also holds a promise of rebirth, a cosmic symbol for the myriad resurrections we will experience during our lifetime and portends the light, wisdom, and enlightenment which is to come and which exists within us already.
Nice, France was built by the ancient Greeks and gets its name from Nike, the Greek goddess of victory. Nice’s connection to her Greek gods are proudly displayed in the central square with a giant statue and fountain depicting Apollo, the sun god, surrounded by other statues representing the planets that circle the sun in elegant harmony. You can’t miss him, he’s 23 feet tall, naked as a jaybird, and has a fantastically chiseled ass that would make any model jealous.
Despite it’s Greek roots, today Nice displays a very rich and beautiful Catholic presence—seriously, there are no fewer than 8 different Catholic cathedrals, churches, or sanctuaries, all within 100 meters of our apartment. Whether it’s the heavy and unctuous chimes heralding the hour or the celestial peals celebrating the sabbath, hearing these bells never, ever stops being charming. And just like the Greeks, the Catholics have their own sun god, Jesus the son of God who is the light and life of the world.
Undoubtedly, there are some fascinating parallels between this celebration of the cycle of the sun of the solar system and the day that celebrates the birth of the son of God. The sun symbolically dies on the 21st, doesn’t move for 3 days, and on the 25th, is born anew to set along its path to bring greater light to the world. Though usually celebrated around Easter, the son of God also died, rested for three days, and rose again on the third day. In Christianity, the 25th of December represents the birth of the son of God, the light that is destined to enlighten the entire world. Whether it’s Apollo or Jesus, the son of God or the sun god, a god surrounded by the 12 constellations of the zodiac or by 12 apostles (and by extension all of his followers), both of these symbols are foundational to this culture and both are celebrated at this wonderful time of year.
Personally, I celebrate both Apollo and Jesus (and a suite of other gods, goddesses, and symbols) because I believe they all poignantly represent the bright light of Source that exists within all of us. I believe that our journey to becoming who we are destined to be requires cyclical wanings and deaths in the unavoidable process continually being reborn anew. I believe that our mothers gave birth to us once so that we may forevermore give birth to ourselves through this slow and beautiful wisdom-practice called life. I believe that to fully embrace life, we must have a ready relationship with death.
Yoga and Yoga Nidra is an effective and even enjoyable method of practicing building a relationship with death in order to practice fully living. Known as corpse pose, Savasana, whether practiced at the end of an asana class or during a Yoga Nidra class, is the symbolic death we submit to where we must surrender our ego, our doing nature, and everything else that needs to die, so that we can be reborn anew. I think of Savasana kind of like a software update for your computer or phone: it doesn’t change your system that much each time but after a while, your system becomes completely incompatible with its older self. Each time we rise from Savasana, we are slightly different, ready to process the world with greater clarity and resolve as we move along our pathway to discovering our purpose.
Do you ever feel like you’re a completely different person than you were just 5 or 10 years ago? I know I do.
The Winter Solstice is a time we must use to compost what has died and to learn from it so we can grow stronger next season. This regular cycle of death and birth moves us, season by season, year by year, along our path of wisdom as we seek greater light and ultimately discover the truth that the light we seek is born inside of us. The ancient hermetic phrase, “As above, so below,” pertains not to the light represented in a naked god in the central square with its fine chiseled ass nor the one shrouded and demur, cached under arched cathedral ceilings, but to the divine flame that exists within your own immaculate heart.
Today, may we all celebrate the darkness as well as the promise of light to come. May we embrace and compost that which has passed in our lives and prepare for what’s to come. And may we wake up each day with a greater knowledge of the light that exists within.
Today, let’s simply practice dying. Let’s practice Savasana.
