The traditions and celebrations described in this book provide an opportunity to pause and reflect on our natural world's dependence upon the cycles of the Earth and Sun. The suggested readings and activities provide a framework for celebrating what we know about these cycles and for sharing our curiosity about what we still have yet to learn, inspiring a sense of wonder about our universe and our place within it. An actor, artist, and educator, Jim Donovan shares the traditions and practices he and his family have developed over the years in a helpful, informative, and entertaining guide for those who would like to establish their own traditions celebrating the seasons. Jim provides a step-by-step guide to celebrating the Summer and Winter Solstices. The book includes specific readings and activities accompanied by engaging photographs: Learn how to make and decorate your own grapevine wreath, the centerpiece of the Solstice celebrations. Follow a detailed description of how to celebrate the longest day and the longest night, including how to make special foods like the Winter Solstice Rice Loaf and how to make special Summer Solstice crafts with children. Enjoy classic poems and original readings, selected especially for each season. Learn about how to incorporate the cycles of nature into daily living, with many resources to start your own celebrations

Not into Santa? This gem is for families who want something new this winter holiday; one that includes the tree, the lights, the giving of gifts, all the fun! The Winter Solstice affects us simultaneously as we change, evolve and stay connected with our natural world, with others, and with ourselves. It's all the magic one needs this time of year!

Describes how and why daylight grows shorter as winter approaches, the effect of shorter days on animals and people, and how the winter solstice has been celebrated throughout history. Includes activities.

This book is an accessible, engaging tool to help people enrich their lives through the observance of ancient, astronomically determined Earth festivals. It assists us to recover an experience that had deep meaning for the ancients and that is now increasingly relevant to a world facing environmental challenges. Seasonal festivals are not meant to be cultural relics. They are joyous, fun, mischievous, profound, life-affirming events that connect us deeply with the Earth, the heavens, and the wellspring of being within us. This book encourages us to undertake full-bodied, ecstatic seasonal renewal by providing information on the history and meaning of the solstices with practical suggestions on how to celebrate them now.

Explores how cultures around the world celebrate and recognize the summer solstice.

PaGaian Cosmology brings together a religious practice of seasonal ritual based in a contemporary scientific sense of the cosmos and female imagery for the Sacred. The author situates this original synthesis in her context of being female and white European transplanted to the Southern Hemisphere. Her sense of alienation from her place, which is personal, cultural and cosmic, fires a cosmology that re-stories Goddess metaphor of Virgin-Mother-Crone as a pattern of Creativity, which unfolds the cosmos, manifests in Earth's life, and may be known intimately. PaGaian Cosmology is an ecospirituality grounded in indigenous Western religious celebration of the Earth-Sun annual cycle. By linking to story of the unfolding universe this practice can be deepened, and a sense of the Triple Goddess-central to the cycle and known in ancient cultures-developed as a dynamic innate to all being. The ritual scripts and the process of ritual events presented here, may be a journey into self-knowledge through personal, communal and ecological story: the self to be known is one that is integral with place. PaGaian Cosmology may be used as a resource for individuals or groups seeking new forms of devotional expression and an Earth-based pathway to wisdom within.

Celebrate the winter solstice with family and friends for happiness and without religious activities.