{"id":146,"date":"2007-12-22T11:20:56","date_gmt":"2007-12-22T17:20:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/?p=146"},"modified":"2007-12-22T11:24:07","modified_gmt":"2007-12-22T17:24:07","slug":"the-sun-stands-still","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/?p=146","title":{"rendered":"The Sun Stands Still"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \"jjwsolstice250-0.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0A Winter Solstice shot by Jim Johnson from the plains near Hecla, South Dakota<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/a>23\u00a088%\u00a030%\u00a00mph windroseWNW\u00a0 bar\u00a029.86\u00a0steep rise\u00a0windchill21\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Winter Solstice<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Winter Solstice began at 12:08 AM\u00a0this morning<\/p>\n

While doing some reading and meditating late last night, I came across something new to me.\u00a0 Solstice comes from the word solstitial,<\/em> to stand still in Latin.\u00a0 This explains a phenomena I noticed in the day and night lengths on the calendar for the next 5 to 6 days, that is, they remain about the same; the sun seems to stand still, to pause at it’s northern apogee, then slowly begin to slide more toward the south, granting a slighter longer slice of daylight with each arc of change.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the same reading I also discovered that the Zuni and the Hopi both have men whose duty is to mark the reemergence of the sun.\u00a0 The Zuni man does it with a low, deep moan.\u00a0 When I read this, it gave me a chill.\u00a0 Imagine a situation where the sun begins to hide longer and longer each day; the days and nights\u00a0grow colder and the plants are long dead.\u00a0 The only food comes from stores and animals caught in the hunt, but they are leaner too for their food sources have diminished.\u00a0 The longer dark brings families together around fires, the smoke spiraling toward heaven emphasizes the blackness outside; the\u00a0 fear the sun may never return.\u00a0\u00a0A priest who knows the heavens climbs to the peak of a village structure or a sits on a mesa one night late in this season.\u00a0 Based on\u00a0faith and knowledge,\u00a0his familar voice fills the air, a wailing that recognizes the grief in your fear, yet its persistence, its calm creates hope within you.\u00a0 You know he has seen, in his spirit life, the promise of the sun to rise and rise and rise, bringing again the warm days.\u00a0 What a moment.<\/p>\n

Last night I also realized that this is my holinight, not a holiday, or even a holiseason, but a particular night, a special night, a night filled with holy wonder.\u00a0 As John Matthews said in his book, The Winter Solstice<\/u>, the quiet of Christmas, that moment in the dawn when commercial activity has ceased, children shiver eagerly in their beds and no one moves, is the later adaptation of the Christian community to the stillness of this Solstice night.\u00a0 It is a calm we need all year, one we can drink in with our senses in these 6 nights while the sun stands still.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0A Winter Solstice shot by Jim Johnson from the plains near Hecla, South Dakota 23\u00a088%\u00a030%\u00a00mph windroseWNW\u00a0 bar\u00a029.86\u00a0steep rise\u00a0windchill21\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Winter Solstice \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Winter Solstice began at 12:08 AM\u00a0this morning While doing some reading and meditating late last night, I came across something new to me.\u00a0 Solstice comes from the word solstitial, to stand still in Latin.\u00a0 … Continue reading The Sun Stands Still<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,17],"tags":[189,186,22],"class_list":["post-146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith-and-spirituality","category-great-wheel","tag-189","tag-holinight","tag-winter-solstice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}