🌄 Solstice and whiro - a new year begins 🌕

Entry#86 on long dark nights, early rising and perhaps finally getting my head around southern hemisphere time and space

#86

Christmas and winter still confuse me. Seventeen years in Aotearoa and I have to admit, eating a barbeque on December 25th is just not right. Neither is being so cold at the end of June.

My points of reference are still loaded towards the 26 years I spent in the northern hemisphere. That said, I’m not one to make a fuss and I didn’t bring a dyed-in-the-wool mindset of Christmassy traditions or Saxon rituals with me on this journey to a new life in NZ.

I’m actually a very flexible person, very curious and always happy to learn.

So today’s two words, solstice and whiro, have joined my lexicon in recent years and have made things make a bit more sense.

Winter solstice was last Thursday (22 June). In the north, this same date was the summer solstice. The shortest (or longest) day of the year, as we spin around the sun. We’re now past the solstice, so climbing slowly out of the depths of winter and towards spring, when we will have an equinox on 23 September.

The short winter days inherently come with long nights, late dawns and early sunsets. Dark trips to the woodshed at 5am are usually dry, star-filled and strangely comforting. Maybe the boogeymen hibernate for winter. I have enjoyed quietly rising to do some work very early in the morning, stoke the fire and prepare the house for the day ahead.

Whiro, the new moon, was just before solstice on Sunday 18 June. This new June moon marked te tau hou o te Maaori, the new year and the period of time known as Matariki. A new year in winter, something I would struggle to explain to English relatives - but in exchange, I doubt they could justify the Gregorian calendar starting in January.

How to reconcile the two together? Well, I bought a calendar. And I read a book.

So here in the depths of winter I do think about a new year emerging from the longest night, slowly growing towards a sunny climax before sinking into an autumnal end. That does make a lot of sense when I think about it.

And within every month, a moon. A smaller cycle of growing and ebbing, a rhythm of phases that tap a more regular beat than 31-days-in-January and 28-days-in-February ever could.

What does this time of year mean for you? Do you mark Matariki? Do you follow the moon? I’d love to know.

That is all for today. As always, I look forward to hearing what you heard, saw and felt when reading this.

With love,

Michelle xx

Ps. Rucks are underway, but there is still time to join me for a weighted walk and try out rucking… Humanitix button below for event details.