Winter officially begins tomorrow night in the Northern Hemisphere at about 11:30 p.m. Pacific Time. I think is important to remember what is happening astronomically on this day.

The first day of winter in the northern hemisphere is the first of summer in the southern hemisphere due to the tilt of the earth. Tomorrow, December 21 is the shortest day (less sunlight) in the Northern Hemisphere and the longest day (most sunlight) in the Southern Hemisphere. The winter solstice is thought to be the main reason why we celebrate Christmas on December 25, very near this shortest day. Christmas is said to have begun as a pagan celebration of the darkest days being behind us for the year.

Yes, back in the day when we were living on root vegetables, berries, the occasional wild animal and anything else we could scavenge as we huddled around campfires trying not to freeze to death each night - the awareness that more sunlight was returning was quite an important event. Remember how you felt when you first used DSL?,.. well its kinda like that, except without the fear of freezing to death, starvation, etc.

You see, it was noticed that the three days after the winter solstice there was a noticeable increase in daylight from its darkest day of December 22. It seems to take about three days for visual recognition to take hold. Sunlight is synonymous with vitality and life. It is around December 25 when you can see the shadow move noticeably on the sundial.

When you think about the symbolism of Christmas and Christianity in general, astrological realities are inescapable. There is a direct correlation to the zodiac. There are four directions, just like the four beams of the cross. The birth of the Sun or God / Jesus is celebrated on Christmas. He is seen rising from the darkness that preceded - that shortest day I referred to. Later when we have the spring equinox, the first day of spring, there is rebirth and renewal - which correlates to Easter and the resurrection, restoration of God through his son (Sun). And of course, the Easter Bunny, that visceral hopping symbol of hope. Dispensing chocolate, malted ball eggs, yellow marshmallow chicks, jelly beans, and if you’ve been real good - the Reese’s peanut butter egg of immortality.

Difficult planets in Sagittarius:

I’m glad that so far the difficult conjunction in Sagittarius has not yielded any major catastrophe. Yet, the exact opposition of Mars in Gemini with the stellium of planets in Sagittarius is still troublesome. In particular, the full moon of Sunday, December 23rd and 24th which joins Mars in Gemini, with Mars and Jupiter in direct opposition, there could be some difficulty - yet there is also quite a lot of promise on that day.

This past week there were two very big earthquakes, both registering around seven on the Richter scale. One was in Alaska and the other was in New Zealand. Luckily, they were in non-populated areas. Yet it is rare to have two such large earthquakes on successive days. Had they occurred in populated areas there could have been major disasters.

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