The Solstice…The Sun Stands Still. What does that mean? How is that possible?

As we cir­cle around the Sun each year, we expe­ri­ence four major turn­ing points in our jour­ney. These four points mark the begin­ning of our sea­sons, and for Astrol­o­gy mark the begin­ning of the Car­di­nal Signs of Aries, Can­cer, Libra and Capricorn.

Two of those points, the equinox­es of Spring and Fall, mark the time each year that the tilt of the Earth is such that we have days and nights of equal length. The equinox­es are a time of bal­ance, with equal time between day and night.

The sol­stices mark the oppo­site “cor­ners” of our cir­cle where­in the dif­fer­ence between day and night are at their great­est. At the sum­mer sol­stice on June 21 we have the longest day and short­est night, the Sun is at its max­i­mum. Now as Win­ter begins, we are in the dark­est of times, the days are short, the nights are long, the Sun is at its min­i­mum. But why do we say the Sun is stand­ing still?

The fact is that for many months the Sun has been set­ting fur­ther and fur­ther South on the hori­zon. Today it reach­es the fur­thest point South that it will go. Now, for sev­er­al days it will set, again and again, at appar­ent­ly the same point on the hori­zon till.…on the 3rd or 4th day, on Decem­ber 25th, we will be able to see that the Sun is return­ing, mov­ing back North. The light of our home is com­ing back, the world will not go dark, our hope is renewed, our faith is restored.

But this sol­stice is spe­cial; it is coin­cid­ing with the Full Moon of Sagit­tar­ius, when the Sun is in Sagit­tar­ius and the Moon is in Gem­i­ni. And this Full Moon hap­pens to be an Eclipse. A Lunar Eclipse is when the Sun, Earth and Moon are aligned with one anoth­er so we see Earth­’s shad­ow pass across the Moon.

What this demon­strates, so vivid­ly and visu­al­ly, is how we are indeed part of a sys­tem of bod­ies that are in an intri­cate, beau­ti­ful rela­tion­ship with one anoth­er. These great orbs cycle round one anoth­er, and that they, and we, are part of a greater organ­ism we call our uni­verse. In oth­er words, what is shown to us now is that we are part of a great com­pa­ny, a mag­nif­i­cent host, wheel­ing through the cos­mos. What we should expe­ri­ence and mar­vel at now is our con­nect­ed­ness to this dance of the planets.

At each Full Moon we expe­ri­ence anoth­er rev­e­la­tion about the rela­tion­ship between the past (Moon), present (Earth) and future (Sun). At the Lunar eclipse, with the Sun rep­re­sent­ing pure poten­tial or the Future, and the Moon rep­re­sent­ing kar­ma or our Past, the Earth (our Present) is com­ing between our past and future. That means our present real­i­ty is hid­ing or obscur­ing the past.

We often feel bur­dened by our past, so we might feel relieved to be seem­ing­ly freed from it. This is cer­tain­ly true for a great many of our expe­ri­ences. But it is also true that our spir­i­tu­al progress has been most delayed by our capac­i­ty to for­get or ignore the past, so that we must learn our lessons over and over again.

We should use this eclipse to let go of those parts of our past that are a bur­den to us, to cast them out as we take out the sword of sev­er­ance and free our­selves from our doubts and fears. But we must also hon­or what has come before, what our fore­bears strug­gled to cre­ate, so that we pre­serve what is good and true in our jour­ney so far.

In ancient times, many feared eclipses because it tru­ly seemed as if “the light was going out”, and they believed ter­ri­ble events were to be expect­ed. But wis­er ones knew, as we should now, that we should cel­e­brate this align­ment as a gift from above. The shad­ow falling across the Moon tonight con­firms of our con­nect­ed­ness with the uni­verse and with one anoth­er. We are not nor will we be ever alone because we are part of some­thing mag­i­cal and won­drous. So go out tonight and expe­ri­ence the mys­tery, majesty, and beau­ty of being part of the uni­verse, your home in the stars.