Winter Solstice: Birth of the Light

On the longest night of the year, light is reborn. We can't see it yet––winter tightens its grip and Spring is far away––yet we see the Sun stopping, and trust that the turn and slow climb will begin. This is the Winter Solstice.

newborn bear cub

This time of year is associated with tales of the birth of a magical child who brings light and hope into darkness. If we look closely at what's happening energetically, we see something more like a conception than a birth: Deep in the darkness, a new vitality stirs. It won't be visible for a while but we know it's there.

In winter caves, mother bears give birth in darkness. They're hibernating––a deep meditative state––and the cubs snuggle in, sucking the mother's milk and nestling against her warm body. This is a Winter Solstice kind of birthing, when new life emerges in hidden places.

In The Book of the Moon, Steven Forrest draws a parallel between the lunar cycle from New Moon to Full, and the annual cycle of solstices, equinoxes and the four great Fire festivals between. He links the New Moon with the Winter Solstice and festival of Yule, saying:

"The dark Moon's inwardness and otherworldliness merge with the out-rushing intensity of the waxing cycle.  ... This is the sheer life-fire of the germinating seed. It is young, naive––and bursting with vital force."

And yet the Sun enters Capricorn at this time, the Saturn-ruled sign that pushes us to be responsible, work hard, practice our craft, and wait. Where are youth and naivete in that? What's going on?

Solstice chart

Think of Capricorn as the mother bear, the container, the safe space for the newborn cub. If she hadn't made it through the year past, found a suitable den, fattened up, and dug in, this new cub wouldn't have a chance.

But she did, and here's the tiny, hairless, blind, helpless bear-seed starting to grow.

We live in cycles, waxing and waning patterns that simultaneously repeat and change. Without one, the other is not possible. Without the other, the one cannot arrive.

When we get attached to one part of a cycle, we miss a sense of cyclic flow. Whether we're attached to acquisition, achievement and success, or to loss, failure and disappointment, we become rigid. When we lose flexibility, we lose insight, we lose choice, we lose hope.

The power of this year's Winter Solstice is heightened by the New Moon in Capricorn following so closely on its heels and by the number of planets clustered in the first degrees: The New Moon at 2 Capricorn, Uranus at 0 Aries, Neptune and Chiron straddling 0 Pisces, Venus at 1 Aquarius, and Jupiter at 0 Taurus poised to turn direct. Our attention is drawn again and again to the power of new beginnings.

At this time of the Winter Solstice, the New Moon of the year, we are invited to pause. At the turning of the tide, the ocean is still. If we also are quiet, we can hear the stillness and then the change. The germinating seed is not visible, but we feel its pulse. This is the gift of hope.