Meanwhile, in the urban jungle.

[Jack Williams]

A red-hot pocker that I planted some time ago flowering.
Probably other shots of flowers taken about now, which is early summer in these parts. I'll look some up.

[Jack Williams]

The Clydium orchard.
The little rose.
The breadfrute thing.

[Kirbstone]

Beautiful pictures Jack, especially No 1. We find red hot pokers difficult to grow. They do better near the seaside.

We are just days away from the Winter Solstice, when at Newgrange, Co Meath, a 5,000+ yr old passage grave, the dawn Sun strikes the back of the passage for 17 minutes. Amazing astronomical accuracy, considering they didn't have writing as we know it and the average lifespan was 31 years.

Winter solstice at Newgrange.jpg

Tom

[Jack Williams]

I'll see if I can find a shot of the winter solstice here.
Yes, the 2013 fiery sunset.
Another direction of the red-hot pokers with the young budding one coming up.

[Kirbstone]

....and here's a very pale yellow poker, which the clouds obligingly cleared a path for this morning at Newgrange. With our fickle Winter weather this sight has not been seen since December 2007.

Solstice Sun at Newgrange 21 12 2013.jpg

Tom.

[crfriend]

Is there another opening at the sunset azimuth to get the best of both events?

I managed to forget that today was the Solstice until I checked it on my computers -- and it's the Solstice that Sapphire and I celebrate!

Unfortunately, today was one filled with sadness. We lost one of our cats today to a saddle thrombus and just recently one of my best friends' relationship of several years came to an abrupt end. So, not much joy, and the darkness doesn't help any.

[Kirbstone]

Hi Carl.
No. Our ancestors at that time went in for constructing passage graves which always oriented towards sunrise, or New Dawn. The middle of the country is literally peppered with them and some are facing the Dawn at the equinoxes, some even at the 'quarter days'...i.e. October 30th/Feb.7/8th, as is one we visited in Sligo earlier this year and which I described in an earlier post. Newgrange just happens to be the largest, swankiest and most visited one of them all.

Ancestors indeed, as swabs taken from local schoolchildren had DNA matching ditto harvested from 5,800 year-old remains found in that Sligo passage grave.

Sorry about you losing your cat. It's always a bit of a wrench losing a long-term pet, but one needs to be philosophical and mindful that 15-20 years is max. for dogs & cats. We have three sibling Millennium collie crosses who will be 14 in Feb. They'll go in the next year or two and will be mourned. I've posted pics. of our adored German Shepherd, now 6 yrs. old. They only very rarely make it into double figures, alas.

Tom.

[crfriend]

Our ancestors at that time went in for constructing passage graves which always oriented towards sunrise, or New Dawn.

That makes quite a lot of sense given how attuned our ancestors (all humans, really, especially those living in the northern and southern latitudes) were with the seasons.

Sapphire and I celebrate the changing of the seasons, and with those the solstices and equinoxes. These are more nature-bound than the man-made holidays that seem to litter the calendar so liberally. We just got very unlucky today. But, that, too, is just a part of life.

Sorry about you losing your cat. It's always a bit of a wrench losing a long-term pet, but one needs to be philosophical and mindful that 15-20 years is max. for dogs & cats.

Indeed, and intellectually I "get that", but at an emotional level there's now a "hole" where there once was a very pretty little cat who, even if she was scared of the world around her, was a special little creature.

Coddle the collies while you have them, and give that big beast of a Shepherd a scratch behind the ears for me. He is magnificent!

[couyalair]

I too would prefer to celebrate the equinox -- the return of longer, lighter days -- bur everyone else seems so busy buying more things than they can possibly eat and masses of presents that no-one really wants, that this important day of the year almost went unnoticed.
As it happens, it did not feel like the shortest day, as there was not a cloud in the sky from sunrise to sunset (unlike the previous week or so), and it was easy to feel cheerful and optimistic about the end of winter we are all waiting for.
Happy New Season to you all.
M

[dillon]

The irony of Christmas is that we really don't know on what day Christ was born. The date of December 25 was usurped from a pagan deity's birth date, which was widely celebrated in the time the Apostles were spreading the Gospel throughout Asia Minor and Rome. Just as the tradition of the Christmas tree and candles were borrowed from the ancient Celts.

Still, there is something quite human and compelling about celebrating birth, and a baby boy in his mother's arms. It fits well in my own religious beliefs, much more so than Easter, because it reunites man with nature and our own love. Plus, the traditions of the season are among the most beautiful and cherished that we have. I wouldn't care to change those, though I could do well without receiving a single gift.

I hope the spirit of the season doesn't pass any of you by. Merry Christmas!

[Jack Williams]

Highly interesting posts guys. I guess my own ancestors also come from those parts.
Just took a shot of some crucufix orchids I also have here. I think they are a native of Queensland coast in Australia. They flower all the time and enjoy being in the planters, not in our heavy clay based soil in the ground here. They seem to exist on air, never do I need to feed or water them at all, just rip out any weeds that invade. Just the sort of flowers to have!

[Kirbstone]

We all know that the early Christian administrators plonked 'Christmas' right on top of the Pagan Saturnalis festival, then celebrated just after the Solstice on Dec. 25th. The Eastern Orthodox churches still cling on to their non-Roman calendar and celebrate on Jan. 7th. (Their Easter is also a couple of weeks later than the Western version.) They then invented the feast of The Annunciation, March 25th to set the incarnation date, so they equipped the Angel Gabriel with a calendar, too.

As to the actual time of the birth the only time of year when the shepherds spend all night out 'watching over their flocks by night' is at lambing time, which is February/March. This is supported by the historic astronomical data which tries to explain the Star of Bethlehem, a modern theory put forward being a conjunction of Saturn & Jupiter which occurred on 4BC and 2BC at about that time of year. It was first sighted 'in the East', and as the wise men journeyed the star 'settled in the North West' over the town of Bethlehem.

So the speculation continues.

Anyway, during rehearsals for the School Nativity Play this clever little boy, who at first had the principal part of Joseph, was naughty and the teachers demoted him to the role of Innkeeper. On the night of the performance with all the parents watching the Holy Couple arrived at the inn door and knocked looking for accommodation, as the lady (Mary) was 'with child'.....whereupon the 'innkeeper' smiled broadly and threw the door wide open and said 'Sure, come right in, we've got lots of room here' !!

Tom.

[Jack Williams]

One thing about all this is that Christmas is nice.
The human sacrificing and stuff that went on in those pagan times was absolutely barbaric and certainly a blot on humanity.

[Sinned]

Christmas is so much misnamed nowadays as it seems to have very little to do with the birth of Christ. The traditional nativity scene is wrong in so many ways anyway which you will get if you really read carefully what's written in the New Testament. Christmas has a touch of sadness for us ( it never really gets any easier ) because 6 years ago we had our last Christmas with our second son. He died the following February of leukaemia at the young age of 29. There was a film on as part of the season's flicks called "The Christmas Visitor" or something like that and it literally brought the tears to my eyes. The loss of a love one whether a pet or a family member is never easy. I recall having shed tears for the loss of some pets that we had for a long time as well.

[Jack Williams]

Yes, over the years these traditions and "Holy Days" have evolved a lot. I do like the tradition of the tree and the giving of gifts, a Danish tradition I think.