Tonight We Begin: This Is Our 20th Year of the Solstice Sun Wheel Celebration

We are a Circle
Within a Circle
With no beginning
And never ending…
by Deborah and Rick Hamouris

As you may know from my newsletter, the Community Notes in this week’s issue of The Wild Hunt, word of mouth, or social media (including our hearts-overflowing Facebook Group), it’s time to begin our Solstice Sun Wheel Prayer Circle.

Starting tonight, and every Sunday evening through Yule (or Christmas), we will join together in grace, contemplating the dark, and calling in the return of the Light.

If you have been a regular reader of mine, you know that beginning in late November, I invite everyone, regardless of your spiritual path, to join together in a virtual Advent prayer circle (or spell weaving, if you’d prefer to think of it like that).

This is our TWENTIETH anniversary! The numbers joining us have doubled multiple times, making it now a huge, truly world-wide event. At last estimate, we had thousands of participants, with 2,000 or so in the Facebook group alone.

I cannot thank you enough for sharing this hopeful celebration with so many souls, for all these years. It is a gift that gives and gives and can open hearts and spirits around the world.

So please join us each week, and please tell your friends and loved ones. The underlying energy of this practice is, by its very nature, inclusive and welcoming to all beliefs, traditions, and philosophies.

You can’t do it wrong and you can start ANY time. So if you have to miss it this week, you can still start with us next week, or any time until it’s over. And if you are traveling over this holiday weekend or have other challenges, you can use a ribbon for your wreath circle, and battery-powered tealights for your candles.

The Basic Idea

The original source for this particular adaptation was the late Helen Farias, founder of The Beltane Papers magazine, and then it was continued by our late friend, Waverly FitzGerald in her School for the Seasons.

Since 2004, I’ve been carrying this lovely tradition forward, adding a few of my own embellishments. And as more and more people have joined, they have created their own ceremonies. For this I am thankful. This is a tradition that does not need to “belong” to anyone but you, and your Beloved(s).

The ceremony is simply an adaptation of the more familiar Christian practice of lighting candles on an Advent wreath, which probably was the descendant of even more ancient, pre-Christian traditions, leading up to the still moment of Solstice.

All you need is a wreath, five candles, and a peaceful time-out each Sunday evening from now until Winter Solstice, and/or Christmas, depending on your preferred climax of the celebration.

Each Sunday, you will light a candle that is symbolic of some attribute, element, or vision, as we go into the deepest darkness of the year, and prepare for the birth of the Child of Promise, the standing still moment of Solstice, and the reawakening of the Light.

The first week (tonight, if you are counting down to Solstice, or starting next Sunday, Dec. 1, if you are counting to Christmas only), we will light one candle only.

Then next week you’ll light first your candle from Week 1, then the second candle. And so on, until Solstice night, or Christmas Eve (or Day, depending on your denomination), when you light the fifth, final candle, depending on your preference.

This Year There is an Extra Lighting

This year’s countdown is slightly complicated by the fact that there is an extra Sunday between Solstice and Christmas. So for those who are counting down to Winter Solstice, tonight is the first candle lighting. The fifth, final candle will be lit Saturday, Dec. 21 (Solstice Night).

For Christians who are counting down to Christmas ONLY, your first candle will be lit next Sunday, Dec. 1, and your fifth, final candle is lit for Christmas.

For families that wish to celebrate both, my suggestion is to start tonight. Then, next week’s 2nd candle can represent the second lighting for the non-Christians, and the first lighting for those counting down to Christmas.

Each participant in your family or group can send out their prayers and envision the candle’s symbolism in any way they are moved to.

At Solstice, you’ll light the fifth candle, and then at Christmas, simply re-light it.

In the lighting ceremony, the candle can represent whatever quality you wish, so the tandem lighting really should not be a problem.

Additional multi-faith suggestions for the qualities you might wish to assign your candles can be found here on our main page.

Why Are We Doing This?

This is the season of Advent, which is not a strictly Christian term, although it is the name given to this very important season of the church.

Advent simply means “to come” from the Latin, so it can apply to the coming of the Christ child, or the coming of the year’s longest night and the assured revitalizing of the Light. Or whatever else you would like to set your intention towards.

We also honor the fertile, necessary endarkenment, while preparing for renewal and enlightenment.

For many of us, our faith — in life, or the Divine, or each other — is being tested like never before.

As we make our way to the end of this incredibly complicated calendar year, in the deepest dark of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, we are also preparing for that moment of stillness, when the Sun halts its descent, seeming to stand still in its arc (“solstice” comes from the Latin for “standing still”). Then, the Wheel of Time turns, and the hours of daylight will slowly, slowly lengthen again.

Yet even in the heart of the darkness, the light is never extinguished. The Child of Promise, the Gift of Love, the blessed renewal of life and hope returns.

There is tremendous power and solace in carving out a time of peace and sacred spaciousness in this often crazy, commercialized, sometimes depressing and overwhelming holiday time.

But you will discover that the real enormity of this ritual lies in the visceral sense you will have, of all the many thousands of others, up and down the face of the Earth as the shadow of night falls, who are joining in with you.

From every walk of life, all different ages, beliefs, languages and lands, you can feel the global wave of prayer and devotion you are joining and a part of. You will sense how, as your candle is extinguished, people to your west are just beginning to gather and light theirs, creating a wave of sparks and light that moves across the face of our Mother Earth.

About 2024

This has been an exceedingly difficult year.

Yes, I know. We keep saying that. Every year, we think it just has to let up, but then it doesn’t.

This year, there are millions of us who are in deep grief, fear, and hurt over the direction the most powerful nation on the planet has just chosen. Dreadful horrors haunt our horizon. They extend far beyond the shores of the United States, for our interconnectedness puts all at profound risk.

Perhaps we are squeezing through a painful birth, or it’s the shift of the paradigm, the changeover of the aeon, or maybe just a train wreck moment in history. In any case, over these years, and in the past few weeks, it seems like it just keeps getting darker.

But this ceremony is, itself, living proof of how, no matter how deep the descent,
the Light will return.

Can you imagine our Ancestors, watching with dismay as the days grew shorter and shorter? The creeping sense of — what if the Sun goes down and never comes back?

Before there were electric lights, when oil lamps and candles were rare, and only the Moon, the stars, and firelight held total night blindness at bay, it must have been quite disconcerting. Even though their ancestors and wise ones surely taught that all would be well and the Light would return, they would have watched the daylight dwindle to nearly nothing, especially in the far north.

The storms and the cold would have grown more deadly each week. Their entire world would be at low ebb. It would surely feel, as many of us currently do, that all was lost. They would be asked to keep the faith, despite all the evidence: months and months of steadily failing light, plummeting temperatures, the death of crops, and the fateful deep silence of Nature all around, except perhaps the howling of wolves.

Yet the Elders would be undaunted. They would promise: All shall be well.

Our ceremony does exactly this.

Together, we light candles and with our whole hearts we know — you and I — that with our love and our combined intention, the Light will not die. With our final candle at Solstice, we will honor the certainty that the Wheel has turned and the light will strengthen once more.

What holds the most meaning for you, dear reader? What Light do you long to rekindle?

We are here. Feel this. This is the sacred pause when you can sense this in every way.

Together, let us be the builders and bringers of the awakening that reveals how interdependence is our truest nature. We bear witness to the existence and sacredness of Truth. And Love is the greatest truth that infuses all.

We therefore weave our prayers around the globe, with our wreaths honoring the great Circle that is the Divine One. Lighting our weekly candles with our awareness on the four quarter points, or whatever you name as holy, we anchor our vision into manifestation.

A Suggested Intention

From within the sacred dark, we shall arise, for we bear within us the hope and knowledge of the Light.

By our love and will, we now aid and embody the shift of our human family, without exceptions, to a more just, compassionate, and fruitful affinity with all the worlds, and the Divine Good.

By this candlelight, we stand for the Light that is always Whole. With our prayers, we embrace the most ancient Divine One(s) whose name is Love. With our hands and hearts joined, now stepping through the gate of change, we honor the sure and true dawning of healing, grace, and rebirth.

As we descend into the dark, we see and encourage the spark in one another, helping it to grow and burn brightly, so that we each become a beacon of hope, love, and courage for all.

With unfailing, steadfast devotion, from within and without, we care for the Earth, Her resources, and all Her beings.

So mote it be.

For Our Friends in the Southern Hemisphere

I invite you, also, to light your Summer Solstice candles (perhaps on a Summery wreath of herbs and flowers), and shine your dazzling hearts upon this work with us. For you, too, are the light-keepers and an integral part of this weaving.

You are the stewards of the Light’s climax now, as it shines and warms, and you will be guiding it back to those of us in colder climes soon.

Tonight’s First Lighting (Nov. 24)

Gather with your loved ones or alone, tonight, wherever you are, around sunset. Ground and center yourself, or create sacred space in whatever way is right for your practice. (If sunset is impossible, no worries. There are people in nearly every time zone doing this, so you will surely not be alone).

The first candle may represent the Element of Air: knowledge, information, understanding, communication. The suit of the Tarot it represents is (usually) the suit of Swords: words, perception, attitude, thought.

It is important to acknowledge the dissonance and worry currently affecting this element.

From pollution in the air we breathe, to the spying and manipulation of global communications, to the doubts and disputes being raised about whether there can even be any such thing as “facts,” and “truth,” think about how fear distorts what we see, what we believe, how we make choices.

We pass judgments, we are told and sometimes share hurtful stories about one another.

We are being lied to and our information access is being manipulated by our leaders on a colossal scale not seen since the dark days of the Second World War.

If you are with your friends, family, or community, you might talk a while about these matters, and the chilling winds of subterfuge and ignorance now threatening free expression and awareness.

Then, allow some silence. With your breath, inhaling and exhaling, begin to see, know, and understand the ways those types of fear exist.

With clarity and compassion, look within yourself. Consider how your own prejudices may have wounded you. Perhaps you have spoken untruths or unkindness, or simply misunderstood someone.

And then, still using your breath as a magical tool, let those fears and hurts be dispelled as you light your candle.

When it is lit, breathe into your vast awareness all of your gratitude for breath itself — this first, last, and most vital gift of life. Feel your inhale and exhale, your life-long companion, as it helps you relax, become alert, and aware. Let your breath sigh, or laugh, or sing, or pray. If you are with loved ones, you might tell stories, speak of what you give thanks for, give honor to those who are dear to you, and why.

Gaze a while upon the dancing flame and call upon the powers of the week’s Element or Gift of Spirit, to heal and bless.

When you are at peace, and the time feels right, gently extinguish your candle.

Blessed be.