Winter Solstice 2008 and New Year 2009

December 18, 6:18 PMAstrology ExaminerMaria Barron

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Northern seasons (Wikipedia common images)

Sunlight on Winter Solstice Day, Dec. 21, lasts only 9 hours, 26 minutes and 22 seconds at our nation’s capital, and Denver will have five minutes’ less light.  Then the darkening cold days that we’ve faced to this point of the year will again grow longer and brighter. At the moment of the solstice, on a line drawn through space between the equator and the sun and out beyond along the plane of the ecliptic, the sign of Capricorn begins. That’s not a coincidence; that’s a definition of an area in the sky. At the solstice, the sun enters the first degree of Capricorn.

For NASA astronomers and western astrologers alike, the solstices and equinoxes – the sun’s four defining moments of the year – mark the four corners of the natural year and the beginnings of the four cardinal signs: Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn. Our calendars recognize these points as the beginnings of the seasons.

Mid-day on Solstice Day 2008 in Washington, D.C.

The New Year used to begin at the springtime Aries corner, with the vernal equinox marking March as Month 1, which is why we now have months obviously named for seven through ten – September, October, November and December – masquerading as months nine through twelve. We’ve yanked the New Year back to mid-winter, which makes some sense.

For northerners, the Earth’s orbit and tilt have stationed us on the day of the solstice in a place where the sun don’t shine! But from this moment forward, the cycle will begin anew, and we can look forward to light and warmth in abundance at the happy summer midpoint of our orbit. It’s a sensible point in the Earth’s orbit to declare the end of an old year and beginning of a new. It is nature’s New Year.

Officially, of course, the New Year begins Jan. 1, 2009, eleven days after the solstice. Let’s call that a quirk of the old Roman emperors and their calendars. As the King of Siam might have said to Anna, celebrating the New Year on the first day of January isn’t scientific. And he would be correct. But it’s close enough for government work, and we’re all pretty entrenched in the tradition.

For astrologers, this year’s Capricorn solstice Dec. 21 has an added portent that’s very much worth examining as we look ahead to 2009. Wouldn’t you know it would involve that brown dwarf Pluto – the small dark fellow who just won’t go away and keeps on participating in our solar system even if we do dis him and call him names; say he’s not a proper planet. We’ll take a look at earth-shaking Pluto power, Jupiter in inventive Aquarius, and the whole year ahead in an upcoming entry.

The solstice is also the natural time to review the harsh but exciting year we’ve lived through and take a deep breath before considering where we go from here. So, between the Natural and the Official New Years, we’ll do some looking back as well as forward, like the fore- and aft-facing god Janus, who lent his name to January.