Day 21. Celebrated the Winter Solstice

Today I observed traditional rituals for the Winter Solstice and made up my own.

I was looking forward to going along to Burning the Clocks in Brighton for the first time, an annual lantern parade culminating with burning of them on the beach, but due to the snow it was cancelled so that was a shame.

Still wanting to mark the shortest day of the year somehow, I did some research and discovered that there are many different historic and current cultural and religious traditions and rituals associated with the Winter Solstice.

I chose to go for pick and mix of the various traditions and so today I've lit candles in a little ritual of my own involving writing down all the things of last year I want to say good riddance to with the passing of the darkness and all of the new things I want welcome in with the light for the new season. Oh I do like a good ritual...I burnt the bit of paper in a symbolic style.

Then I smeared some butter around my front door frame.

This is inkeeping with the Finnish tradition:

"the indigenous people of Finland, the Saami, who worshipped the sun-goddess Beiwe.
She travels with her daughter, Beiwe-Neia, through the sky in an enclosure of reindeer bones, bringing back the green plants for the reindeer to feed upon. On the Winter Solstice, her worshippers sacrifice white female animals and thread the meat on sticks which they bent into rings and tied with bright ribbons. They also smear their doorposts with butter so Beiwe can eat the rich food and begin her recovery."
(From Waverly Fitzgerald’s School of the Seasons)


and now I shall proceed this evening in the festival's spirit of merriment and mirth as many others have throughout the centuries.