[00:00:00] Welcome to Planet Spoonie, the podcast for lymies and Spoonies healing themselves and the world. In this compassionate and collective space, we learn all about the foundations of truly holistic living, including traditional nutrition, herbal medicine, nature connection, and everything in between. These are the same foundations that have helped me rediscover the magic, wisdom, and innate healing capacity of my own body and the body of the Earth.
[00:00:29] Even while living with chronic illness in the time of the climate crisis. I'm your host, Kelsey the Herbalist. Let's dig in. So today I want to talk about a subject that I think is really interesting and important to understand. But it took me years of research to really figure this out and understand it.
[00:00:50] Because if you don't know, you don't really know what to look for. And that is the Solstices, the winter solstice specifically, because that is the holiday that we just celebrated or went through, and we're still in the celebration season for it. So if you don't know, you might have noticed that there are many cultures across the world who have celebrations at this time of year and there is a reason for that is very rooted in reality in the physical world around us and really has specifically to do with the position of the earth in relation to the Sun.
[00:01:25] The winter solstice is the day of the year where night is the longest and day is the shortest. But before I get too into that, let's back up and take a look at what the solstice holidays are. So if you notice, like I mentioned, in a lot of these sacred holidays and celebrations of cultures throughout history and across the globe today, we find that they really center around these solar and lunar movements.
[00:01:56] And as such, they are solar and or lunar holidays. So this is how people have tracked time forever. It's how nature really tracks time. It is a marker of the movement of time and the cycles and seasons of the year, and it's something that When you begin to really pay attention to, you really do begin to see how nature shifts quite dramatically around these changes.
[00:02:21] On a more subtle level we have the phases of the moon, which are 14 days in length, moving from a new moon to a full moon and vice versa. And then we have solar days, and those ones are definitely less subtle and more obvious. And the solar holidays are the winter and summer solstices. And the spring and fall equinoxes.
[00:02:44] And so these make up our seasons. This is why we have four seasons in our culture and in many cultures. And these four seasons are, really determined by essentially like the geometry the angle and position of the earth in relation to the sun. So right now we just experienced the winter solstice and we are in winter.
[00:03:06] And this means that essentially If you've ever taken astronomy or watched any kind of fun documentary or read about this in a textbook or book of some kind, you know that the earth tilts in relation to the sun, the earth has a tilt right on its axis. And when we're tilted away from the sun, we experience winter, it is cooler and we have longer periods of night due to our angle in relation to the sun.
[00:03:32] And during the summer we are tilted towards the sun. And we experience warmer weather and longer periods of sunlight. And the northern and southern hemispheres, of course, experience these they're experiencing the opposite season at the same time, right? Because of that tilt. Because we're in winter right now, we are tilted away from the sun.
[00:03:53] And essentially what the winter solstice is the day in which night is the longest. It's that point in our orbit around the sun at which we have the most hours in a day that are dark and the least hours in a day that are light. And so this day can technically alter every single year because it's based on, the movement of the earth.
[00:04:21] around the sun. It's not based on a calendar or something. This is, this is what our calendar is based on, but it's not completely accurate. So if we look at this, we see that actually the winter solstice, the day after we begin to experience more light because that winter solstice is the darkest day.
[00:04:40] So we are celebrating the rebirth of the sun, the day in which we have more light every single day, right? All year. For, I was going to say all year long, but for many weeks until we reach the spring equinox. The spring equinox then is the day at which the light and the dark are in balance. They're in, they're equal, they're in harmony, right?
[00:05:06] So we have equal times of day and equal times of night during the spring equinox. Then when we reach the summer solstice, we have the most hours of daylight because we've been slowly getting more and more light every day since the winter solstice. And now at the summer solstice, we have the longest day of the year and the most hours of sunlight.
[00:05:27] We are tilted towards the sun and after the summer solstice, which usually is around the end of June, we get less and less light and the light begins to wane. Every day until we reach the fall equinox occurs around the end of September and Again, it's an equinox. So we have equal time of day and night And that continues, the light continues to wane until we hit the winter solstice, which is usually around December 21st, and we just experienced that, and we're still in the celebrations of that, which, you know again, like span across cultures and regions and belief systems, and they all are intertwined and centered around these solar holidays, which is really interesting.
[00:06:12] And of course, like I mentioned, there are lunar holidays as well. But when we think about some of the main holidays that we celebrate, of course, acknowledging that here in the U. S., most of our holidays that we celebrate are Eurocentric, are derived from different European traditions, and those, there's a whole other history to those, but if we think about that, then we can see it.
[00:06:36] How all of these holidays exist, right? So we celebrate Christmas around the winter solstice. That's our winter solstice celebration. Then about halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox, we have a cross quarter day. Cross quarter days are the days that fall exactly halfway between a solstice and an equinox or vice versa, an equinox and a solstice.
[00:07:02] iN Celtic tradition, because that is my own heritage and the heritage that I've really been able to explore at this point, we would celebrate Yule as the winter solstice. Imbolc would then be our cross quarter day before the spring equinox. The spring equinox might be called Ostara, or more commonly now called Easter.
[00:07:26] After Easter, we then have the summer solstice, or mid summer, occurring at the end of June. Between the end of June and the fall equinox, we have Lammas, which is at the end of August. It is a fall harvest there are different names for it. We also have the fall equinox, which then occurs at the end of September, often called Maybarn.
[00:07:53] Then we have Halloween, or Samhain, which is the cross quarter day between the fall equinox and the winter solstice. And that's celebrated at the end of October or early November. It's usually actually about a week after Halloween is generally when the actual cross quarter day falls between the equinox and winter solstice.
[00:08:13] And then we have Yule, which is our winter solstice. That's it. Those, there is obviously a much deeper, richer history to this, of course, when we start looking at different cultures throughout time. Because different cultures had different ways of honoring lunar and solar holidays and tracking time.
[00:08:32] But this is something that it took me forever to figure out, and I think this is actually really important to think about and consider, especially in relation to our own individual cultures. Like I said, I just happen to know more about Celtic because that's where I've started. And I definitely am hoping and seeking to learn more.
[00:08:51] But when we start to incorporate our own cultural traditions and understand, Why we celebrate this, the holidays we celebrate, not just like in the capitalistic, spending money on whatever decorations and things to keep the wheel turning sense, but actually rooting into the markers of time and the significance of this season and what it means what energy it brings, what might it have meant to our ancestors when they didn't have technology to alter their experience of the season.
[00:09:24] What does it mean to us now? How can we honor it? How can we lean into it? I think a lot of us have heard the concept of leaning into rest and ease during the winter seasons, as well as finding ourselves much busier and more active during the summer seasons. And these aren't universally true, but there's a lot to be learned from Just observing the seasons and learning to observe these cycles in nature and when you do, especially I really began to notice this when I was working as a farmer.
[00:09:58] The cycles in nature really everything does respond so intensely to these solar holidays of the solstices and equinoxes and it's really fun to observe and witness that. Because we just notice things that we never would have noticed before in the landscape around us. And like I said, the lunar holidays are a little bit more subtle, but especially if you're someone who lives on a coastline like I do, that's one, one way you might notice big changes is in the tides, for example.
[00:10:28] There's a lot to be explored here and I think, like I said, it's really important because it really places us within the context of our culture and it roots us in reality, not just something we've been told to do that we do because everyone does it, but we actually begin to understand it.
[00:10:44] Why we're celebrating Halloween, what the reason was, what it really meant, right? And maybe the actual reasons why we tell ghost stories and spooky stories, but understanding, culturally, what was really the meaning of this holiday? And in a very real physical sense, what is the meaning behind this for the natural world around us?
[00:11:06] How does this impact our landscape, and how does this impact our own bodies? And I think that's really interesting to consider. Additionally, it's important to think about how this affects us biologically, right? We talk a lot about this, I know I talk a lot about this, but how important honoring cycles of light and dark are, I think in the chronic Lyme population, in folks with multiple chemical sensitivity, or any kind of complex chronic illness, neurodivergence lots of different health experiences and conditions.
[00:11:44] People do notice that they are much more sensitive to light and dark, and For everyone though it's biologically significant to think about, and it's significant to see this play out. And so when you really start to develop that relationship with understanding, yes, this is the darkest time of year, how can I embrace that?
[00:12:05] Instead of having a million and one lights decorating your home or your neighborhood, right? How can you Embrace the darkness. How can you lean into it? Because it's biologically important. And that's something we begin to see when we not only acknowledge the cultural significance, but we just begin to observe how it manifests in nature around us and how it manifests in our bodies.
[00:12:29] So we know, that during the daytime, sunshine stimulates the release of different kind of hormones and endocrine factors like cortisol and insulin and testosterone, right? Things that kind of keep us going and relate to this experience of being awake and being active, but arguably darkness produces just as important hormones As light, if not more, and these include things like graylin and leptin and melatonin, as well as thyroid stimulating hormone and many others.
[00:13:07] And when we look at that you can see on a very real practical level that if these things are produced in the darkness, it's essential for us to get darkness, right? And if you consider how. We, meaning collectively as a species, experienced a constant flux of light and dark year after year following these solar events, right?
[00:13:36] And these lunar events, you can understand that these things aren't really insignificant, right? They're really important. We evolved, our body evolved to respond to these natural pressures, these natural events to a really high, like incomprehensibly high level of sensitivity. And it's important to develop a relationship with the darkness.
[00:13:59] That's why in so many creation stories and wisdom traditions, including really the Big Bang Theory, this world and all worlds are birthed from darkness. Darkness is and always has been sacred. And this is one of the reasons why winter solstice in this time of the year is so important. It's something that we can experiment with and play with and get curious about and really develop a relationship with.
[00:14:28] And, we could definitely, I could go more into this and talk more about it, but I don't think we need to. I think that if you've heard this and if you're new to hearing this for the first time and you didn't really understand this concept before, This is a pretty significant thing to realize. I think, when I first started learning about this, I didn't And I, this just isn't something that I heard people talking about.
[00:14:55] I didn't hear any kind of explanations. I had a hard time understanding it. I was looking to all these different books trying to figure it out, it's amazing to me that in 20 years I had never understood what these events were, what these holidays were based upon, that it wasn't just cultural, but it was deeper than that.
[00:15:11] It was something that we all experience regardless of culture and regardless of really like the species that we even belong to, because. All of life, all of earth feels the effects of these changes of the movement of the earth around the sun and the movement of the moon around the earth. And yeah, I think this is really important for all of those reasons and more.
[00:15:33] And there are so many things that we can do to really begin to embrace it. So if you are even more curious about this and you want to embrace it, there's a lot of different things that you can try. You can try lighting candles at night instead of using lights. You can ditch all your screens or just turn them to dark mode or night shift and tint it so it's like really orange to try to get rid of that blue light that we know is really disruptive to these hormonal cycles our body goes through in phases of light and dark.
[00:16:07] We can go outside and gaze at the moon and the stars. We can begin learning the names of constellations. And We can really just embrace it. One of the other things that we can do that I love is you can just install orange or red lights in your home so that you can use light at night that's not as disruptive.
[00:16:28] There are those, I love those little LED wire lights that you can get orange tinted or red tinted that are really dim and mellow and aren't going to be too disruptive if you want to use those at night because I know it gets dark super early. But, essentially, try any of these things, embrace it, and play with it, and see how it impacts your body.
[00:16:49] It's, I think, there's more to it than this, but a lot of times we can dismiss things as being woo practices, or, which that word is, has a very interesting backstory to it. But, we can dismiss things really easily, because we think that makes no sense, or that's silly, or that's whatever.
[00:17:09] Right? There's one, moon gazing in particular women or anyone who menstruates, this is something that I have experienced myself and it was wild to me how regulating it was, is just moon gazing, the practice of going out at night, every night and finding the moon and moon gazing, if that's an option. Of course, it's not always visible depending where we're at and where the moon is at, but this practice can be so You know, on, on many levels, but particularly for irregular menstrual cycles, am I going to pretend that this is scientifically, validated through numerous clinical trials and peer reviewed studies?
[00:17:49] Absolutely not, by no means. However, There are many women and people who would attest to how beneficial and helpful this practice has been for them. I tried this myself and many years ago when I had never experienced regularity and it, for me, it completely worked. And I have heard this from so many other women.
[00:18:10] And, I think this really speaks to just how easy it is to dismiss the importance of aligning ourself with natural cycles and rhythms because we've separated ourself, or we're, we've deluded ourselves into thinking we're separate and not really living in sync with natural cycles on any level and So I encourage you to try these things.
[00:18:35] I encourage you to try moon gazing, to try turning the lights out, especially if you find yourself dysregulated in some way, meaning You find sleep really difficult, you find your energy levels to be very dysregulated like super tired during the day and wired at night or maybe you experience a dysregulated menstrual cycle.
[00:18:58] Any other kind of rhythms or cycles where you experience dysregulation. I encourage you to try this, try these things. Try embracing the cycles of light and dark and beginning to experience and learn the seasons. And it will completely change. Not only your experience of time, but it may really help you with some of the dysregulation you're experiencing.
[00:19:20] And again, this is super different for everyone. This is not medical advice. Instead, this is, an education. This is just information to empower you to begin developing and deepening your connection to the earth, to your body, to your culture, and To the reasons why we are the way we are and why we do things the way we do them.
[00:19:44] I think this is really important to think about and consider and In a culture, in a generation, I know I can speak for my generation, but I think definitely the younger ones, as well as some of the older ones, feel this. A real sense of being uprooted, a real sense of not belonging. And I think this is how we get grounded again, this is how we get rooted.
[00:20:08] We root ourselves in a very real physical reality. In real time, right? In real cycles of nature that go beyond just the cycles of the earth, but the cycles of our solar system, right? And it's hard to even speak to what a shift it can have because it is so profound. But it really begins to shift our perception and our understanding of the world around us and ourselves.
[00:20:33] And that is exactly what my goal is of healing heritage and in the work I do and in my own experience with chronic illness, because it's re building our foundation and remembering our history that will help us come to a place of greater healing and belonging and connection. I hope that you enjoyed today's podcast and episode as much as I enjoyed sharing it with you.
[00:21:07] I hope that many of you already had an understanding of the solar holidays and why they are structured the way they are, why our year and our seasons are the way they are. But if not, I hope this helped you understand it a little bit better. There are many wonderful resources out there where you can learn more about this.
[00:21:27] I highly recommend looking to books and texts and websites where That belong to your culture that belong to someone in your ancestry, because I think that can really give it a lot more meaning. And I think that's a really great place to start and to begin learning, because all of our cultures had this understanding.
[00:21:49] And while our celebrations may be varied a little bit differently depending on where in the world they are and what our cultures are. There is so much connection and belonging to be found here. I know that these tools and this information will really help you feel more resourced and supported in your everyday life in really simple ways.
[00:22:10] Just learning about our holidays and embracing the cycles of the light and the dark. The goal, as always, of the Planet Spoonie podcast is to help you feel empowered, embodied, and more connected to yourself, your community, your heritage, and your local ecosystems. I truly believe learning about and beginning to witness and experience these sacred holidays, these solstices, and equinoxes firsthand will help you get there.
[00:22:40] As always, if you feel ready to make big magic happen, or you need more one on one support to find healing with a complex chronic illness or chronic Lyme, click the link in my bio to book a call with me. I have openings beginning in the new year, which is only a few days away. Remember that when we reconnect to our bodies and to nature, healing is truly inevitable.
[00:23:05] It's never a linear process. Our bodies are a direct reflection of the ecosystems we inhabit. And just like this earth, our bodies know how to heal.