I created this mix several years ago — a collection of hymns, chants, Medieval carols and songs — a music compendium to mirror and celebrate this sacred moment in the Earth’s time cycle.

The Solstice, the night of the longest night, also marks the return of luminosity, as Winter begins in the Northern Hemisphere and radiance gains prominence.

Light has always symbolized awareness and consciousness, as well as life-giving, creative properties. And in a real way we are each bodies of light, with the Sun Absolute as both our source and sustainment. And that bond is not simply symbolic, it is literal.

For many astrologers, the Winter Solstice is a demarcation that defines the start of the New Year. How we experience the longest night provides an essential hint as to the theme or signature of the year ahead. Both universally and personally. It’s my wish that this mix of music can tune you into a vector that’s off the beaten path, especially for this time of year.

Solstice Blessings to each of you!

I’ve always put up a Christmas tree. Despite the halfhearted participation (and groaning) of my boyfriends, I’ve faithfully, right after Thanksgiving, headed out and bought a tree to lug home–or cut down, after moving to Vashon. It’s a ritual I rarely miss.

After visiting India some years ago I returned home in the winter and the notion of putting a bauble-laden tree on display felt absurd. This reaction is a rite of passage for anyone who ventures to India: After India your brain cells are rearranged and you never view your world, or its customs, the same. I know that was true for me as a Westerner. Christmas in America, after the dust and squalor of India, felt decadent. So I skipped the holidays that year — though I missed having a tree in the house.

Arranging the colors, shapes, textures and lights on a tree is so satisfying. It’s similar to making a painting; the alchemy of conjuring art. Simpler, but no less magical.

I especially love, at nighttime, how light ricochets between the ornaments. As I’ve grown older I’ve come to understand that the ritual of displaying a tree is a sacred act — although I’ve never fully understood why.

Most of us are familiar with the historical origins of the Christmas tree. Its association with the pagan rite of celebrating the solstice. When the light of the Sun ‘returns’ in the Northern hemisphere and begins its increase and ascent, the radiance grows stronger and longer through the ensuing months. Trees were displayed to honor the burgeoning of light and life. And the fruits and trinkets that would decorate the tree honored the bounty, the wish of a successful harvest in the year to come.

And yet the historical perspective never impressed me much. I mean, none of those facts would drift through my mind as I’d lounge on the couch in the evening — no matter my age — and stare at the tree until I fell asleep. Nope, another set of mysterious associations would encircle me and my reverie. And it wasn’t until I came to the conclusion of one of my favorite books this year that I began to make sense of my devotion.

Martha Heyneman‘s book The Breathing Cathedral is a fantastic interweaving of the cosmologies of Gurdjieff, Dante, Aquinas, Stephen Hawking and others, into a new model, a new interpretation of the universe we inhabit. I was drawn to the book because, as a longtime student of Gurdjieff’s teachings, I was intrigued to see how Heyneman, a zoology student turned poet, brought Gurdjieff’s teachings forward and married them to the world of science.

The last chapter of her book is titled O Christmas Tree, and at first the subject — the family Christmas tree — seemed an odd way to summarize all that she’d explored in the previous chapters. But in the end I understood completely. Read more