ACTIVITIES FOR WINTER SOLSTICE SEASON
- Remember happy childhood winter memories
- Honor an elder who has passed on and re-establish your spirit bond with him/her.
- Gather with friends and family to celebrate the daylight becoming longer and sun becoming stronger with a short candlelight ceremony. Have people reflect on the meaning of light to them. Feel the energy of the candles and note how one candle can light many and how that light is all from one source.
- Make a list of enjoyable things you can do to nurture yourself in one minute, 5 minutes, 15 minutes, 1/2 hour 1/2 day. Include cocooning and breathing.
- Walk outdoors, and honor the Green Standing People's (trees) visible "bones" of the winter season. Pick up a pinecone, acorn, maple key or other seed and envision the life within it. Apparently the energy or aura of a seed shows a full grown plant or tree Its full potential is there at its beginning.
- Honor the living creatures that survive the winter season because of their own efforts and ingenuity. Consider donating food or blankets to a local animal shelter or animal rehab centre.
- Honor the stones whose patience carries them through the cold and dark, without flinching.
- Sing "Deck the Halls with Boughs of Holly", Merry Solstice to You (tune of happy birthday) and "We Wish You a Happy Solstice "
- Welcome the returning sun, every morning or evening, as the days lengthen.
- Look a street person, in the eye and say hello with genuine regard and respect. If this is difficult begin by speaking to the persons' higher self. Contemplate the idea that they are playing an important role in the overall big picture of why we are on this earth. That respect will sustain them as much as the money they collect
- Bring into your home, as decoration in food ingredients, edible plants that have stayed green and alive all winter. They have absorbed the energy of the earth and rain and wind and sun. Now you can absorb that energy as well, with gratitude.
- Consider donating a warm piece of clothing to a shelter for homeless persons, or a transition home by calling a womans resource centre in your locale. Many seniors groups have programs whereby a senior who would be alone on christmas puts a wish for a gift on a card and you pick a card and purchase the gift. It is given to the senior on your behalf
- Know that you are Blessed. modified from article by Elchai