Nurturing Children’s Inner Light Through Winter’s Darkness
Welcome to Nurturing Children’s Inner Light Through Winter’s Darkness! There are eleven videos in this mini mindfullness series and curriculum written and voiced by Ashley Causey-Golden, and produced by Katherine Schlatter. These are intended for families exploring questions about our feelings, thoughts and natural bio-rhythms around the winter solstice. (If you don’t see all eleven short videos, check back daily!)
Introduction to winter solstice, an explainer
So what’s the winter solstice? The winter solstice, which is sometimes called the “hibernal solstice”, happens twice yearly, once in each hemisphere, the Northern and Southern.
Wait, what? How can it happen twice if we have one winter? As the Northern Hemisphere has its winter solstice the Southern hemisphere has its summer solstice, then vice versa each hemisphere gets a turn! The world enjoys two winters, not one!
Why does it happen? The solstice is the moment when the Earth’s poles are at the maximum tilt away from the Sun. See this great animation to help you understand it.
So how do we know it is the winter solstice? For all life, including people, animals and plants the Winter Solstice in more temperate climates is more extreme, and noticeable as it is also the shortest period of daylight and longest night of the year.
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| IMAGE: Yellow indicates how sunlight hits the earth surface during equinox which occurs when both hemispheres have a day and night of the same length | IMAGE: A gif of the revolving earth demonstrates the axis upon which the earth is tilted. |
But we can’t tell if it’s a the day is a minute longer, or shorter, unless we woke up and set a stopwatch at sunrise…right? Well it’s also when the Sun is at its lowest daily maximum elevation in the sky.
I heard there are places where the sun doesn’t even rise? That’s correct in more extreme polar regions the experience is one of continuous darkness, or not quite darkness like twilight around the winter solstice. But during the summer solstice in polar regions the sun never quite sets, or if it does the sky remains light.
So when does this happen? Usually during Winter or Summer school break! In the Northern Hemisphere, the Winter Solstice is December 21 or 22 and in the Southern Hemisphere, it’s June 20 or 21st.
The following is a series videos for educators and families, to think about the winter solstice and our natural bio rhythms that occur in these colder weeks and months.
