Winter Solstice Rituals of Light,

Release, Gratitude

Karyl Huntley believes our rituals enrich us and connect us with our ancestors and generations still to come. She believes rituals deepen meaning for us and help us make sense of life's highs and lows. In fact, rituals play such a crucial role in human life, Huntley says, “I believe people who have no connection to or appreciation for ritual are impoverished in a way that hurts their humanity and their ability to live fully.”

In the December 2021 issue of Science of Mind magazine, Huntley examines rituals around the winter solstice, celebrated on December 21 in the Northern Hemisphere. “What we have at the solstice,” she writes, “is a divine reset button.”

She shares rituals for the solstice, for release and for gratitude. She notes that every spiritual tradition teaches the giving of gifts at this time of year. “I imagine that the giving of the light and the promise of another year would have been the greatest gift our ancestors could hope for,” she says, “and it was always given.”

In her focus on gratitude, she says, "When you truly, generously give with no strings attached, you are replicating the nature of your Source. Joy always follows.”

For a ritual around gratitude, Huntley offers this: Take a piece of paper and write down gifts you can and will give the world in the coming year. Address questions such as: How will you make the world a better place by giving your light? What can be given only by you?

You can then attach this piece of paper to a comfort object — a photo, a blanket, a stuffed animal — that you can refer to throughout the year. “I live and give. I heal and help.” Conclude this ritual by sharing food — gifts from the Earth —with a small group of friends or family.

Our staff at Science of Mind magazine joins Huntley in saying, “May the blessings and light of this season of wonder be upon you and yours.”

Solstice Traditions to Bring

You Warmth and Light

Cultures across the globe celebrate the winter solstice in ways that offer warmth, light and hope. Here are just a few to spark your imagination for your own celebration.

The Hopi people, indigenous to northern Arizona, celebrate the winter solstice as part of their religious tradition honoring kachina — the ancestral spirits representing the natural world. During what’s called a Soyal solstice ceremony, they welcome the sun back to its summer path with ritual dances, songs, prayers and stories.

In Japan, the winter solstice, called Toji, calls for eating a winter squash called kabocha, perhaps because it is one of the few crops that would have been available in olden times. Celebrants also draw hot baths with yuzu fruits, believed to refresh the body and spirit, ward off illness and soothe winter skin.

Perhaps the world’s best-known solstice celebration happens at Stonehenge in England. Celebrated since ancient times, modern winter solstice revelers gather at dawn the day after the longest night to witness the magical occurrence of the sun rising through the stones. Scientists agree that, whatever else these stone megaliths might have been, they were certainly heavenly observatories. The pattern of the stones is oriented to the sky to observe specific astronomical events.

However you mark the days getting longer and the return of the light, we wish you each a happy winter solstice.

Merge With the Infinite

By Ernest Holmes

Job asks us if we can find God by searching. He means that since God is everywhere and since the subtle essence of the Infinite is invisible, we do not have to search out the Divine Spirit. Rather, we should recognize It as the center of all life.

That which we see if merely a reflection of this invisible Presence. The Spirit Itself cannot be seen, but It is felt, just as we do not see God but we do feel the Divine in everything.

The Creator is revealed in Its creation. The Formless gives rise to the formed. We should consciously unite ourselves with this invisible Essence that pervades everything, that which our lesson says is eternally unconditioned and undivided. To do this is to find wholeness.

Today I feel that I merge with the Infinite. … My real spirit is omnipresent n God, secure in Good and perfect in Divine Being.

—Excerpted from the entry for December 8, 365: Science of Mind by Ernest Holmes.