This Winter Solstice on December 21st also marks the first day of Capricorn in the Zodiac Sky.

In Latin, Solstice means “sun set still.”

This is the time of great darkness, the longest night of the year, and also signifies the spiritual cradle into which the sun is born.

Winter Solstice is the time of endings and also the time of new beginnings.

Pagan Europeans had been celebrating the birth of the sun centuries before Christians mirrored the festival with Christ’s Mass (birth of the son) on December 25th.

Solstice is the Silent Night, where all of nature lies dormant and is deemed sacred in its rest before the sun is born of the Goddess, and the God retreats to give way to the light of the Feminine.

We celebrate this time of year with candles and all manner of lights to remind us that we are the keepers of an inner light that springs hopeful in the hearts of men.

The deep darkness of Winter Solstice is the last vestige of our descent into the Underworld to seek our deepest dreams, our most illuminating mysteries, and the hope for sunny days once more.

Sometimes we forget that at Winter Solstice the sun has actually reached its most southernmost point. Far away from the Northern Hemisphere, the sun has been on its retreat since the Summer Solstice when we began our descent into the dark.

Capricorn sheds its influence while we are blanketed with snow and cold temperatures.

Just as in earlier times, when winter survival depended on serious preparations to the pantry and storehouse, Capricorn’s lessons are always serious, well thought out and studious of man’s inner nature.

While Capricorn sometimes gets pushed aside as a dull sign full of dour predictions, I choose to see it as a wise advisor, the keeper of a cool and collected head, and a teacher that has learned through repeated experiences.

We can also learn from Capricorn’s tendency to see things as glass-half-empty and remember that with sunny days come the sprouting of dream seeds and new life adventures.

With the rise of the Goddess/Feminine in the North, take one last deep dip into the waters of your mysterious nature and ask yourself what indeed it is that you hope to manifest in the New Year.

more here…Winter Solstice 2015: Capricorn’s Wisdom & the Birth of Dreams. | elephant journal