Winter solstice
The winter solstice occurs when one of the Earth’s poles has its maximum tilt away from the Sun. In the Northern Hemisphere, this is the December solstice, and in the Southern Hemisphere, it is the June solstice. It marks the first day of the Sun’s transit into January, marking the end of the winter month and the start of the longer days of spring.
About Winter solstice in brief
The winter solstice occurs when one of the Earth’s poles has its maximum tilt away from the Sun. It is the day with the shortest period of daylight and longest night of the year. In the Northern Hemisphere, this is the December solstice, and in the Southern Hemisphere, it is the June solstice. It marks the first day of the Sun’s transit into January, marking the end of the winter month and the start of the longer days of spring. In India, this occasion, known as Ayanivartan, is celebrated by Hindus as a holy day, with customs such as bathing in holy rivers, giving alms and praying to God and doing other holy deeds. In meteorology, winter is reckoned as beginning about three weeks before the winter Solstice. In temperate climates, the midwinter festival was the last feast celebration, before deep winter began. The solstice may have been a special moment of the annual cycle for some cultures even during neolithic times.
Astronomical events were often used to guide activities, such as the mating of animals, the sowing of crops and the monitoring of winter reserves of food. Many cultural mythologies and traditions are derived from this. It’s significant that at Stonehenge the Great Trilithon was oriented outwards from the middle of the monument, i. e. its smooth flat face was turned towards the mid winter Sun. The wintersolstice was immensely important because the people were economically dependent on monitoring the progress of the seasons. In cultures which used cyclic calendars based on the winterSolstice, the year as reborn was celebrated with reference to life-death-rebirth deities or \”new beginnings\” such as Hogmanay’s redding, a New Year cleaning tradition.
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This page is based on the article Winter solstice published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 19, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
