Today is Monday, December 19, 2011. The Moon is in Libra, the sign of balance, but in terms of the Sun’s movement, we’re at one of its two extremes during the year. In the northern hemisphere, this is the time of shortest days and longest nights, with the shortest day of all happening later this week: winter solstice (though it is summer solstice south of the equator). This turning point is heralded by the Sun’s ingress of Capricorn at 12:30 am EST Dec. 22.
Actually, there are a whole series of turning points this week. Points of greatest expansion lead to contraction; moments of constriction give way to release. It’s a bit like breathing in its cyclical rhythm but it is happening on multiple scales all at once. Moon, personal planet, minor planet, Sun and season: each crosses a threshold that may be less disorienting than the recent eclipses, but the shifts entailed are still palpable shifts in vital life force.
In the case of the Capricorn solstice, this shift in vital force – in a sense, the Earth’s deepest in-breath before beginning to exhale – has been something to set calendars and myths to. Called Midwinter and Yule (among other names), the winter solstice is one of the quarter days of the year in the Pagan calendar (the others being the summer solstice and spring and autumn equinoxes). Many contemporary Pagan groups also observe ‘cross quarter days’, which occur roughly at the midpoints between the quarter days.