You may have noticed over the past six months that the sun is dying.
Every day it climbs a little less high into the sky than it climbed the day before. It hangs low in the sky, visiting us with its warmth a little less each day. Every morning it wakes later, and every evening it retires earlier. If it were to continue its malaise, it would eventually be unable to climb even above the horizon, leaving us in a perpetual night. Alone. To die.
Fear not, today the sun is reborn. It is renewed. Beginning today it will climb higher in the sky every day, it will visit us with it’s life sustaining warmth for longer and longer each day. In a short time snows will melt, rains will come, plants will spring forth again, and a new generation of baby animals will be born into a new land.
The circle of life on our tiny little rock will continue on, for at least another year. The sun and the earth care not whether we live or die, yet today, because of their movements, our tiny little lives are saved, to continue on, for at least another year.
It is a time to celebrate, and reflect, and take joy in the knowledge that we live, we are alive and well and living on planet Earth, for at least another year.
Feel free to celebrate this miracle with the religious ritual of your choice.