My Christmas Wish for You
Newgrange, Winter Solstice
Earlier this week the annual celebration of the winter solstice took place here in Ireland at Newgrange in Co Meath. Newgrange is famed for the illumination of its passage and chamber by the Winter Solstice sun. Above the entrance to the passage of this megalithic mound there is a opening called a roof-box. On mornings around the winter solstice a beam of light penetrates the roof-box and travels up the 19 metre passage and into the chamber. As the sun rises higher, the beam widens so that the whole chamber is dramatically illuminated.
Over several generations our Celtic ancestors designed and built this structure which turns the shortest day of the year into a symbol of light in our darkness.
As Tony Bates writes this week in the Irish Times:
This megalithic structure spoke powerfully to a nature-based people who looked with dismay as the sun shone for less and less time each day, and the earth below appeared to be dying. They were frightened. They felt helpless in the face of powerful forces that could decide their destiny and over which they felt they had no control. Sound familiar?
Newgrange was built to reassure them that neither the sun nor the earth would die, regardless of how bad things looked. The geometric alignment of its roof light and inner chamber enabled Newgrange to capture the sun’s rays on the shortest day of the year. And what looked like a low point of creation, became the moment when the sun penetrated deep into the earth and both were reborn.
Perhaps at another level, Newgrange spoke, and still speaks, to the human heart. It reminds us that it can take hitting an all-time low in our lives, before we come alive.
Today dear friends, my greatest wish is that you too may experience the light of hope within you and may the magic of Christmas touch your hearts with love and joy.
Christmas is not a time nor season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas ~ Calvin Coolidge
With gratitude for all your support over this past year.
Marie x
I can barely see to type through my tears…may we ALL experience a Light that penetrates our dark places.
Merry Christmas to You & Billy!!
All my Love,
Taiya
LikeLike
The whole world needs a roof-box like Newgrange to lift us out of this amoral, warring mess we’ve let happen. We have “let” it happen and it will take an enormous conscious decision to set us on the right path. I sometimes wonder what happened to the liberal young woman I once was. Someone told me as we age, we become more conservative because we have more to conserve. I think it’s because we finally mature and realize there are consequences to our freewheeling actions.
XOXOXO,
Brenda
LikeLike
Brenda, as always, a thought-provoking comment!
LikeLike