Solstice Gratitude Bank: What Past Participants Say about the Experience #IrelandWinterSolstice

Thank you for all your kind words!! 2012-2023 Solstice Grá

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WinterSolstice.ie 2013 Group Photo at Newgrange Solstice Sunrise

#sol18 Daren #LiveSolstice 2018 Beloved Attendee

Thank you, thank you, thank you. What a powerful, profound, and beautiful experience that was. It was a fantastic event that I am in gratitude to the team for organising, and I am so lucky to have shared it with so many beautiful souls. Happy Solstice.

.. Although this was my first event of this type, and I attended on my own, it was an important part of my personal journey.

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#sol18 E. Wu #LiveSolstice 2018 Beloved Attendee

My Dear

thank you so much for giving me this possibility to have a good mental and emotional rest. I really needed it.

Hope you are well and happy with the event - it went really well.

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#sol18 Gillian G #LiveSolstice 2018 Line-up Elder

I just want to say how grateful I feel to have been invited to be part of Winter Solstice experience with you all. You both bring so much of your pure hearts through for everyone to open theirs.

There are no words to say only - Incredible, deep, open hearted, inspiring, loving, fun, healing, blessings, nourishment, joy, peace

and I could go on but just to say thank you so much again and I wish you both the blessing of light and love Happy Christmas

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#sol18 Darya #LiveSolstice 2018

I wanted to thank you for the wonderful event.

Even though we had to leave early in the morning, the evening magic was enough to fill us with a huge charge of warmth, joy and awareness. It is very nice that you have collected so many amazing bright people and presented them with a real holiday.

I wanted to ask you, maybe you are organizing something like this on New Year's Eve, or maybe you know where to go for a conscious and non-alcoholic holiday? I would be very grateful for the information.

I embrace and wish you a pleasant day.

Зимнее Солнцестояние Ирландия

Хотела поблагодарить тебя за прекрасное мероприятие.

Хоть нам и пришлось уехать рано утром, вечернего волшебства хватило, чтобы наполнить огромным зарядом тепла, радости и осознанности. Очень приятно, что вы собрали такое количество потрясающих светлых людей и подарили им настоящий праздник

Хотела спросить тебя, может быть вы что-то подобное организовывает в новогоднюю ночь, или может ты знаешь, куда можно пойти на осознанный и безалкогольный праздник? Буду очень благодарна за информацию

Обнимаю и желаю приятного дня.

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#sol18 Lorna E #LiveSolstice 2018 Line-up Elder

Thank you thank you dear heart for such an amazingly magical time. So so many soul moments.

Anytime you need healing sounds and blessings let me know. Planning a sound bathing evening in the garden here in summer so hope you will be around for that.xxx

Just a gathering of a few friends to hang out around the fire and watch the moon rise.

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#sol18 Treacy O #LiveSolstice 2018 Line-up Elder

Aw thank you so much guys. I really appreciate it. I feel like I should be paying you for the deep immersive experience.

I hope you both received as much as you gave.

Such a truly beautiful and powerful dreaming, conceiving and birthing for all of us and beyond.

May your work continue to shine and blossom abundantly.

Thank you so so much for everything.

Love

Treacy xx

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#sol18 Sinead H #LiveSolstice 2018 Line-up Elder

So excited to be coming to this special event!

Sounds so magical, inspiring and heart warming!

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#sol18 Michelle #LiveSolstice 2018 Beloved Attendee

So much love and gratitude to you the humans, the universe for creating this beautiful gathering.

I am in joy looking at the nourishing schedule for this solstice get together.

I feel so grateful and blessed to have the opportunity to be part of this sacred gathering.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

With love,

Michelle :) xoxoxox

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#sol18 Christine #LiveSolstice 2018 Beloved Attendees

Myself and soul partner..are coming

to share beautiful connection with all of you.

Sooo looking forward to

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Solstice Energies of Newgrange and Dowth

♧ Newgrange ♧

Newgrange Monument is our most visited heritage site and widely considered to be much more than just a tomb, rather a sacred temple. Built in alignment with the winter solstice sunrise, Newgrange was one of the largest projects in prehistoric Europe and its construction involved an investment of superhuman proportions.

2022 winter solstice sunrise circle

It is also obvious that the men and women who built Newgrange possessed an innate cosmic wisdom and maintained a worldview that appreciated the divine sense of connection in all things. The people who built Newgrange understood their place in the grand plan of the universe by living intimately with the flow of the Solar and lunar cycles, and cosmic movements of planets such as Venus and the star constellations such as Orion, Cygnus and the Zodiac.

♧ Dowth ♧

Photo Credit: Tullyallenp

Dowth monument is only a 10 minute walk from Newgrange and is nearly the same in size. It gets its name from the old Irish word ‘Dubhadh’ which means Darkness.

It’s south chamber is aligned with the setting sun of the winter solstice.

This alignment marks the longest night of the year and the period of greatest darkness.

The ancient celtic and pre-celtic people considered the beginning of night time to be the start of any day and therefore it is most likely that they would have celebrated the letting go of the darkness at Dowth at sunset before walking down the road to Newgrange the following morning to celebrate the rebirth of the light that marks the lengthening of the evenings.

By celebrating at Dowth we honour, give thanks and ritually let go of the year just past…

2015 Solstice: RTE will cover Dowth as well as Newgrange for the first time – Recognising the ancient cycle of celebration

From Darkness (Dowth) to Light (Newgrange). RTE is for the first time covering Dowth with Newgrange for Winter Solstice – recognising for the first time this ancient cycle of celebration.

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Photo Credit: Winter Solstice .ie

RTE have contacted us and want to cover the deep tradition which is being awakened through the Winter Solstice Experience.

After thousands of years the land of Ireland can openly celebrate it’s ancient calendar and it’s depth can be recognised, understood and become accepted again.

Winter Solstice is incomplete without the journey from Darkness to Light – Dowth to Newgrange – one of both cleansing and renewal.
Its a very ancient journey that is unique to the sacred monuments of the Boyne Valley.
RTE will be covering a brief moment from the ceremony on Dowth and Newgrange (They will do this very sensitively and discreetly as we are in ceremony).

What is most important is that the people of this land “Remember” again the deep meaning of Solstice ..and the national media who including Dowth in relation to Newgrange is massively aid and demonstrating the shift in consciousness ……. as the Darkness can once again be understood and embraced with the Light.

The Dark Mystery of Dowth…

In Ireland when we think of Winter Solstice we mostly think of Newgrange. The sun shines in its chamber every winter solstice morning.

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Photo Credit: Tullyallenp

We don’t, however, give much thought to Dowth, a monument equivalent in size to the original Newgrange. At Dowth, the setting sun is in alignment with its chamber the evening before Winter Solstice morning.

On any given winter solstice about 4 to 500 people brave the cold morning to honour the solstice for themselves. However, only a handful of people honour the sunset alignment the evening before at Dowth.

If our ancient ancestors just wanted to honour the New Year rebirth of the sun, then Newgrange alone would have been enough. The very existence of Dowth gives us a clue as to how our ancestors viewed the changing of the seasons.

The word Dowth comes from the old Irish “Dubhadh” meaning “darkness”. It is clear from Dowth’s equivalent size to Newgrange that the honouring of darkness held a significant place in our ancestors’ consciousness. If one was to be objective it looks like they honoured the darkness as much as the light and gave the darkness a special place in their folklore.

To honour one side of the coin while pretending the other side does not exist is not being very aware. The ancestors of Ireland were obviously mystics themselves, recognising the reality of opposites existing. To honour one side (the light) would mean not honouring the whole and living in denial.

In the words of the Lao Tzu the Taoist mystic “there can be no dark without light, love without hate, man without woman”. Lao Tzu also talked about the light of creation being born from the infinite darkness. The Sufi mystic Rumi says “what hurts you, blesses you. Darkness is your candle.” So what can we learn from this and how does our society honour the darkness?

From the period of Samhain to Winter Solstice we energetically (both solar and personal) with nature go deeper into the darkness. The winter solstice offers us not only the opportunity to celebrate the rebirth of the light but also its transition from darkness.

It is in the rebirth of light that brings hopes, aspirations and our prayers giving vision for the year ahead. It is in the celebration of the darkness that honours the year past, the wisdom gained, the letting go of that which is no longer serving us.

If we don’t celebrate the darkness before the light on winter solstice we don’t make space for the rebirthing energy, space for the new and the fresh.

The great wisdom in the Boyne Valley monuments are there for all people living on this land. To make conscious each year the very cycles of life that keep the world in balance. The monuments still stand in all their wisdom as an invitation to us from Ireland’s ancient ancestors, to come home to wholeness, to healing and to bring the darkness to the light and the light to darkness.

Honouring the World of Spirits at Samhain

Samhain is a very magical time of the year. The people who followed the original ways of honouring the cycles of nature seen Samhain as a time of death.

A window through the veils of reality from this world to the next. In celebrating Samhain we consciously dance, play, honour and ritually celebrate our connection to the spirit world. Although some may think otherwise, we are surrounded by spirits, ancestors and light beings who are all too happy when we acknowledge their existence. In doing so we add deeper meaning and connection to our lives. We don’t have to struggle away on our own….we are supported in so many ways. Samhain is about opening and allowing that support to flow. It’s two way traffic ….. As we show up and honour the spirit world….. they make their presence more and more known and felt in our lives.

The true scary energy of Samhain is the feelings of isolation and aloneness we feel when we miss or turn away from our innate connection to the spirit world which is our home.

Celebrate the Stillness