The ancient ones celebrated two solstices each year: the Summer Solstice - the longest day of the year, and the Winter Solstice - the shortest day and longest night.
The Winter Solstice falls on December 21, and this year, 2010, it coincides with a full moon and a full lunar eclipse. It's been 456 years since the Solstice and a lunar eclipse coincided.
The shortest day and the longest night is a time for Wiccans and Pagans to celebrate the return of the light in the depth of midwinter.
Yule is the ancient Saxon word for this festival, and many of the traditions that are still followed today have their origins in pre-history.
The Celtic Festival of Yule is one of the most evocative and significant festivals for Pagans and Wiccans.
The Wheel of the Year always turns, but the ancients believed that the wheel stops briefly at this time of the Winter Solstice.
It was taboo to turn a wheel, or even a butter churn, on the shortest day.
This time of stillness was a precious opportunity to consider the year gone by from a point of stillness, and, equally calmly, a chance to look forward to the increasingly active months to come.
The shortest day is a festival of rebirth, when Wiccans and Pagans choose what to take with them into the New Year, and what to leave behind.
Winter Solstice celebrations are a time of relaxation, retreat and feasting.
Pagans and Wiccans spend the days leading up to, and following on from, the Winter Solstice in grateful reflection on life, enjoying plenty and laughter with friends and family, as far removed as possible from the strains and stresses of everyday life.
Mistletoe cut from the oak at this still moment of the year was seen as a sacred fruit, a sign of life in the darkness of the winter.
Cut so as to touch only cloth, and never hands, the mistletoe placed on a solstice altar was a potent symbol of fertility - leading to the tradition of lovers kissing under the mistletoe!
The holly wreath symbolizes the wheel of the year, one of the many ancient traditions that pass unnoticed into the modern era.
For Pagans and Wiccans today, holly is a symbol of renewed direction in life, and the blood-red berries are a potent representation of fertility and new life.
LYRICS:
Chorus:
Enter the night and you'll find the light,
That will carry you to your dreams.
Enter the night, let your spirit take flight,
In the field of infinite possibilities
On the longest night we search for the light,
And we find it deep within.
Open your eyes to embrace what is wise,
And see the light of your own soul shining.
(Chorus)
Wrap up in the cloak of starry darkness my child,
And you'll find the center of all things.
For from this space of the deepest dark place,
Life Eternal does spring.
(Chorus)
So when you find that spark
When you dream in the dark,
Hold it close to your heart and know.
All that you see is all that can be
When you give birth to the dreams of your soul.
(Chorus)
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