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Kitchen Table Kibitzing 12/21/22: Solstice [1]
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Date: 2022-12-21
Happy Solstice! The days get longer again, woohoo! It’s been used as an excuse to party since forever.
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.[citation needed] The winter solstice was immensely important because the people were economically dependent on monitoring the progress of the seasons. Starvation was common during the first months of the winter, January to April (northern hemisphere) or July to October (southern hemisphere), also known as "the famine months". In temperate climates, the midwinter festival was the last feast celebration, before deep winter began. Most cattle were slaughtered so they would not have to be fed during the winter, so it was almost the only time of year when a plentiful supply of fresh meat was available.[9]
Because the winter solstice is the reversal of the sun's ebbing in the sky, in ancient times it was seen as the symbolic death and rebirth of the sun or of a sun god.[10][11][12] In cultures which used cyclic calendars based on the winter solstice, 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), and "reversal" (as in Saturnalia's slave and master reversals).
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https://dailykos.com/stories/2022/12/21/2142845/-Kitchen-Table-Kibitzing-12-21-22-Solstice
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