Saturday

Winter Solstice   
One of the four solar holidays; it is celebrated as the rebirth of the Great God who is viewed as the newborn solstice sun

The word Solstice evolved from Old French from Latin solstitium
(combination of sol, the sun, and stitium, to stand still.)   
  

The warm sun is falling, the bleak wind is wailing,
The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying,
...
Come, Months, come away,
From November to May,
                        ~Percy Bysshe Shelley~



 The windows of my soul I throw
Wide open to the sun.
            ~John Greenleaf Whittier
Solstice Dawn
(Monoprint, Muntins Series II, #4)


Thursday

Samhain
            Called All Hallow's Eve or Ancestor Night, it is when the veil between the two worlds is most pervious.  
            Observance begins at sundown on October 31. 
            This third and last of the three pagan Autumn harvest festivals acknowledges a time of cleansing and preparation for the darkness of Winter.  It is the most important of the four "greater Sabbats."  


Stonehenge Moon
(Monoprint)

I'll be seeing you in all the old familiar places
That this heart of mine embraces all day through;
In that small cafe, the park across the way
The children's carousel, the chestnut trees, the wishing well.

I'll be seeing you in every lovely summer's day,
In everything that's light and gay;
I'll always think of you that way.

I'll find you in the morning sun;
And when the night is new
I'll be looking at the moon,
But I'll be seeing you.
Irving Kahal

Saturday

Autumnal Equinox
One of the four solar holidays; the second of the three pagan autumn harvest festivals.

  
... Yellow the leaves of the rowan above us,
And yellow the wet wild strawberry leaves.
The hour of the waning of love has beset us...
Let us part, ere the season of passion forget us,
With a kiss and a tear on thy drooping brow.
Falling of the Leaves
WBY


Friday

Summer Solstice - Midsummer
One of the four solar holidays; the turning point at which summer reaches its height and the sun shines longest.

“The three great elemental sounds in nature are the sound of rain, the sound of wind in a primeval wood, and the sound of outer ocean on a beach. I have heard them all, and of the three elemental voices, that of ocean is the most awesome, beautiful and varied.” 
 Henry Beston
  

“The sweet secret of a summer place…”
monoprint

Thursday



VERNAL EQUINOX
One of the four solar holidays marking the beginning of spring.  The rejoining of the Mother Goddess and her lover-consort-son, who spent the winter months in death; or the Goddess returning to her Maiden aspect (e.g., Persephone returning from the Underworld.)

Alders are tasseled.
Flag iris is already out on the canal.
... I can see the ... crocuses stammering
in pools of rain, plum blossom on the branches...
False Spring, Boland

Sailors, take warning!

Friday


IMBOLC

a celebration of the lengthening days and the early signs of spring. Lighting of candles and fires represents the return of warmth and the increasing power of the Sun

  

May the blessing of light be on you — light without and light within.
May the blessed sunlight shine on you and warm your heart ‘til it glows like a great peat fire.

Celtic blessing
Light Within/Light Without
(monoprint)

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