One of the oldest known “windows”
Light opening (center of image) above the entrance to the passage at Newgrange.
For a few days around the winter solstice, a ray of light shines through this opening into the chamber at the end of the passage at sunrise.
May 2014
#Newgrange #PassageTomb #Boyne #SiAnBhru #CountyMeath #Ireland #Neolithic #Neolithicperiod #wintersolstice #sunrise #solstice #Irland #Neolithikum #Jungsteinzeit #passage #Wintersonnenwende #Sonnenaufgang #FensterFreitag
To those who celebrate, may you walk in #light.
#Candlemas
#Imbolc
#StBrigidsday
Enjoy your #crossquarterday.
Northern Hemisphere is about halfway from #wintersolstice to #vernalequinox; #Spring is coming.
Candlemas Day by Marianne Stokes (1855-1927) c. 1901, Tate #T02108, Presented by the Trustees of the Chantrey Bequest 1977, public domain
#astronomy #calendar #season #solstice #equinox #Earth #Sun #histsci
🪷 Light a candle for #Antinous on February 2nd: Halfway #Solstice to #Equinox! #Imbolc #Candlemas #GroundhogDay #diadelacandelaria, all of them are Festivals of Newborn Light. On 2 Feb #Antinoos says wake up & open your eyes to your own divine light: https://antinousstars.blogspot.com/2026/02/antinous-and-zoroastrian-origins-of.html 🪷
Lewistown had a major resurgence of painted holiday windows, this solstice season, and this resident couldn't be happier. HUZZAH! #solstice #wintersolstice #christmas #hanukkah #stluciaday #boxingday #kwanzaa #holiday #holidays #winterholidays #paintedwindows #decorated
A Dolly Parton Christmas display I designed in my youth, but never built. Watercolor, 2025. #christmas #holiday #holidays #solstice #wintersolstice #yule #stluciaday #boxingday #hanukkah #kwanzaa #celebrate #dollyparton #christmasdisplay #xmasdisplay #holidaycutout #plywood
Libby and Winslow frolic by the dining room table. #doll #dolls #dollcollector #dollcollectors #dollphotographer #dollphotographers #dollphotographs #dollpicture #dollpictures #libby #libbylittlechap #barbies #fashiondolls #toydog #christmas #holidays #solstice #yule #stluciaday
https://brevitymag.com/nonfiction/solstice/
Usually classified as memoir, Joanne Lozar Glenn's "Solstice" could also be appreciated as short fiction.
In any case, it's an affecting piece of writing that takes minutes to read but will stay with you for days, weeks, months...
Image: Joanne Lozar Glenn -- https://muffin.wow-womenonwriting.com
#USLiterature #Nonfiction #Memoir #Solstice #JoanneLozarGlenn
Arthur helps Midge to undecorate the tree. #doll #dolls #fashiondoll #fashiondolls #dollcollector #dollcollectors #dollphotographer #dollphotographers #christmas #hanukkah #kwanzaa #stluciaday #boxingday #holidays #yule #solstice #wintersolstice #winterholiday #winterholidays
Mary Kate enjoys fall weather. #doll #dolls #dollcollector #dollcollectors #dollphotographer #dollphotographers #marykateolsen #marykate #autumn #fall #fallweather #weather #climate #seasonal #seasonschange #equinox #solstice
"One for the past, one for the present, and one for the future." That's what Laura does in this game of #Solstice, and it's what I've just done, using Fenestra #tarot cards.
Solstice, part #2 – Noël, cette saloperie capitaliste qui réchauffe le coeur
16 décembre. Je vais prendre un café en attendant que son train arrive, au resto du centre commercial à côté de la gare. Il y a beaucoup de gens seuls à leurs tables, de tous âges, avec leur laptop. Ça me déconcerte. Je serais incapable de venir me poser là pour bosser, ou même pour regarder des memes. Ça résonne comme pas permis, c'est un brouhaha constant, et puis ça manque un peu d'intimité. Je me dis que peut-être, c'est plus agréable que chez eux. Moins bruyant, si ça […]https://morayner.org/solstice-part-2-noel-cette-saloperie-capitaliste-qui-rechauffe-le-coeur/
"The #winter moon has always struck me as having a #fairytale sort of beauty. In these days of #midwinter, for those of us in the #Northeast, the brightness of the #moon is even starker and more visible without the leaves on the tree branches. In this season of the #Jewishcalendar, post-#Hanukkah and pre-#TuBishvat, the long post-#solstice nights seem to invite dreaming and stories.
What #stories does #Jewish tradition tell about the moon?
In the #Talmud (Chullin 60b), there’s a tale about the moon and the #sun. The #story goes like this: Once, at the dawn of creation, the moon and the sun were equally bright. (It’s fun to try to imagine what that might have looked like.) The moon wasn’t happy about this sameness and complained to the Holy One, saying, “Is it possible for two kings to wear a single crown?” The moon seemed to imply that she should be made bigger.
The Holy One responded to this request by making the moon smaller..."
Lastly for 12th night: the kallikantzaros (or kallikantzaroi in plural) is a sort of subterranean goblin or troll who can come above ground during the 12 days of #Christmas, or the #yuletide fortnight after the winter #solstice, while the sun ceases its forward movement, found in the folklore of southern Europe & Anatolia, in countries including Greece, Bulgaria, Turkey, Serbia, Albania, Bosnia, & Cyprus. 🧵
#linocut #printmaking #mastoArt https://minouette.etsy.com/listing/1842687473
Midge enjoys a holiday visit with Winnie Houyhnhnm and Claus the Goldfish. #doll #dolls #barbie #barbie #fashiondoll #fashiondolls #horses #houyhnhnm #houyhnhnms #gulliverstravels #clausthegoldfish #familyguy #holiday #holidays #solsticeholidays #solstice #wintersolstice
A bit of this year's winter solstice celebration for #ColorADay #OrangeSun.
Not the most exciting post as I'm mainly working on boring stuff like drains and construction tasks at the moment. Here's December's update. We have had a huge dump of snow here in Orkney though since I wrote this.
https://northernlatitudes.scot/winter-is-coming/
#winter #scotland #solstice #science #astronomy #perihelion #aphelion
Sunrise, Sunset, Solstice and Perihelion
I was on the train earlier today when I remembered that we are getting close to the time when Earth reaches its perihelion, i.e. the point in its orbit when it is closest to the Sun. This occurs at 17.15 GMT tomorrow (Saturday 3rd January 2026), in fact. At this time the distance from the Sun’s centre to Earth’s centre will be 147,099,894 km This year, aphelion (the furthest distance from the Sun) is at 18.30 GMT on July 6th 2026 at which point the centre of the Earth will be 512,087,774 km from the centre of the Sun. You can find a list of times and dates of perihelion and aphelion for future years here.
Earth’s elliptical orbit viewed at an angle (which makes it look more eccentric than it is – in reality is very nearly circular).At perihelion the speed of the Earth in its orbit around the Sun is greater than at aphelion (about 30.287 km/s versus 29.291 km/s). This difference, caused by the Earth’s orbital eccentricity, contributes to the difference between mean time and solar time which, among other things, influences the time of sunrise and sunset at the winter solstice that happened a couple of weeks or so ago.
Incidentally, although the Solstice took place on 21st December, it was not until the end of 2025 that we experienced the latest sunrise. The longest day means neither the latest sunrise nor the earliest sunset. The earliest sunset was actually on December 15th in Dublin.
It surprises me how many people think that the existence of the seasons has something to do with the variation of the Earth’s distance from the Sun, thinking that the closer to the Sun we get the warmer the weather will be. The fact that perihelion occurs in the depth of winter should convince anyone living in the Northern hemisphere that this just can’t be the case, as should the fact that it’s summer in the Southern hemisphere while it is winter in the North.
The real reason for the existence of seasons is the tilt of the Earth’s axis of rotation. I used to do a little demonstration with a torch – flashlight to American readers- to illustrate this when I taught first-year astrophysics. If you shine a torch horizontally at a piece of card it will illuminate a patch of the card. Keep the torch at the same distance but tilt the card and you will see the illuminated patch increase in size. The torch is radiating the same amount of energy but in the second case that energy is spread over a larger area than in the first. This means that the energy per unit area incident on the card is decreases when the card is tilted. It is that which is responsible for winter being colder than summer. In the summer the Sun is higher in the sky (on average) than in winter. From this argument you can infer that the winter solstice not the perihelion, is the relevant astronomical indicator of winter.
That is not to say that the shape of the Earth’s orbit has no effect on terrestrial temperatures. It may, for example, contribute to the summer in the Southern hemisphere being hotter than in the North, although it is not the only effect. The Earth’s surface possesses a significant North-South asymmetry: there is a much larger fraction of ocean in the Southern hemisphere, for example, which could be responsible for moderating any differences in temperature due to insolation. The climate is a non-linear system that involves circulating air and ocean currents that respond in complicated ways and on different timescales not just to insolation but to many other parameters, including atmospheric composition (especially the amount of water vapour).
The dates when Earth reaches the extreme points on its orbit (the apsides) are not fixed because of the variations in its orbital eccentricity so, in the short-term, the dates can vary up to 2 days from one year to another. The perihelion distance varies slightly from year to year too; it will be slightly larger next year than this year, for example. There is however a long-term trend for perihelion to occur later in the year. For example, in 1246, the December Solstice (Winter Solstice for the Northern Hemisphere) was on the same day as the Earth’s perihelion. Since then, the perihelion and aphelion dates have drifted by an average of one day every 58 years. This trend will continue, meaning that by the year 6430 the timing of the perihelion and the March Equinox will coincide, although I hope to have retired by then…
#astronomy #ellipticalOrbits #perihelion #solstice #WinterSolstice
RE: https://mastodon.social/@Meyerweb/115818077918467230
This!
I spoke with OH yesterday and henceforth we are going to celebrate the solstices and equinoxes more than we do the holiday season or new year. It makes so much more sense in that it happens naturally and regularly and across the entire planet.
Happy new calendar year dear friends!
I felt a new year beginning once we passed winter #solstice on the 21st, really.
In any case, stick together, turn up the loving #kindness, and may pure liberating #awareness emerge spontaneously from our overly busy minds.
As ever, call on me for odd #jobs great or small.
I'm hoping to get back into regular #work via a fresh look at #volunteering this spring.
Fingers crossed for all of us xxxx
