The Latinate names estival solstice (summer) and hibernal solstice (winter) are sometimes used to the same effect, [17] as are midsummer and midwinter. During the southern or winter solstice, Christmas is the most widespread contemporary holiday, while Yalda, Saturnalia, Karachun, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and Yule are also celebrated around this time. Winter at Tantora Festival ( Saudi Arabia): Cultural festival marking the beginning of the winter harvest season. This means that even though the solstice marks the longest or shortest days (and the most direct or indirect sunlight), there is a considerable lag between that and the peak of warm or cold weather.

When all have written down what they wish to release, all can gather around a fire, and each can in turn come to the fire and throw their paper in. Tune into all that you have to be grateful for while you visualize light energy filling you and all around you.

This is a long-exposure photograph, with the image exposed for six months in a direction facing east of north, from mid-December 2009 until the southern winter solstice in June 2010. The winter solstice marks the shortest day of the year with the longest night of the year and the official beginning to the winter season. Astronomical events were often used to guide activities, such as the mating of animals, the sowing of crops and the monitoring of winter reserves of food. Please note: Text within images is not translated, some features may not work properly after translation, and the translation may not accurately convey the intended meaning.

It was believed that bonfires could help banish demons and evil spirits and lead maidens to their future husbands. Furthermore, to be precise to a single day, one must be able to observe a change in azimuth or elevation less than or equal to about 1/60 of the angular diameter of the Sun. As a result, meteorological (weather-based) summer starts at the beginning of June and ending with the last day of August.

The days before and after the solstice, the declination speed is less than 30 arcseconds per day which is less than 1⁄ 60 of the angular size of the Sun, or the equivalent to just 2 seconds of right ascension.

Before Christianity, ancient Northern and Central European pagans (including Germanic, Celtic and Slavic groups) welcomed Midsummer with bonfires. Relax and breathe, letting go of the need to focus on the world around you, and instead, allowing yourself drift into a relaxed and peaceful meditative state. The key is not in letting darkness overwhelm our lives and our thoughts but in understanding that darkness can be one of the greatest catalysts for personal growth and transformation. Equinoxes and solstices correspond to the Cardinal zodiac signs — leaders, kickstarters and go getters that initiate each new season.The following tables contain information on the length of the day on 20 June 2016, close to the summer solstice of the Northern Hemisphere and winter solstice of the Southern Hemisphere. Allow yourself to just be, breathe, and feel alive and connected to your inner light, to the Earth, Sky, directions, and to all of life.

Imagine all that no longer serves you traveling down this column, and effortlessly releasing into the light at the core of the Earth. A celebration occurs at sunrise, when the sun shines directly through the Gate of the Sun in Tiwanaku.Accounts do not survive but Greek astronomers must have used an approximation method based on interpolation, which is still used by some amateurs. It’s the moment at which the plane of Earth's equator passes through the centre of the Sun's disk, or the moment that the Sun passes the celestial equator.