Wonder of Winter Begins : First Day of Season Brings Longest Night--and Celebrations

Wiccans say Yule, Zoroastrians say Yalda. But whatever you call it, Tuesday was the height of the season for some Orange County residents.

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It was, of course, the winter solstice. The longest night of the year. All 14 hours and six minutes of it.

“It’s a time to release and let go of all the stuff that you don’t want to bring into the new cycle (year),” explained Lorene Judd, manager of Visions and Dreams, The New Age Source, in Costa Mesa. “It’s a time to go inward like the animals do when they hibernate, and then make your affirmations for the new cycle.”

“Solstice is a cycle,” said Judd, who meditated with a group of seven friends and then feasted on Indian food Monday night in Laguna Beach at a solstice celebration. “It’s ending one cycle and starting another cycle.”

Officially, Dec. 21 is the Northern Hemisphere’s first day of winter. Someone even dubbed this dark day “National Flashlight Day.” Another creative genius declared it “Humbug Day,” when everyone can vent pre-Christmas stress with 12 personal “humbugs.”

Of course, some people take it more seriously.

In the pagan religion Wicca, a form of witchcraft with followers in Orange County, the winter solstice is one of eight Sabbaths celebrated throughout the year. Wicca is an Earth-based religion that worships a god and a goddess; the winter solstice is a happy, forward-looking holiday that celebrates the return of the sun, as the Oak King (named for an early spring tree) overtakes the Holly King (named for a tree whose berries bloom late in the season).

“From midsummer until solstice is a process of aging and maturing. The winter solstice is the promise of rebirth,” explained Oliver Ghaubah, 38, who performed Wiccan rituals in his Lake Forest home Tuesday night. “It’s the affirmation of youth, of life. Rather than the dead of winter, it’s actually the promise of spring to come. Solstice is when we celebrate the return into life of that which was dead.”

Ghaubah and his wife, Shantih Mariarty, 23, read poetry and sang Wiccan carols, burned a Yule log with their hopes for the coming year wrapped around it, then ate sprouted bread and squash and drank a special wine with currant. They also planted an oak tree in their back yard. At Awakenings, a metaphysical bookstore in Laguna Hills, Wiccans will gather Thursday evening for a similar celebration.

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“This is really a time for me to start rechecking the things I ‘planted’ last year, mentally, to kind of see which things no longer fit where I’m moving to in the coming year,” said Dana, the leader of the Awakenings coven, who asked that her last name not be used. “It’s a time for me to clear my mind for the coming year, to focus on the things I wish to bring to fruition in the coming year.”

Zoroastrianism, an ancient monotheistic religion that grew up in what are now Iran and India and has about 3,000 adherents in the United States, includes a similar festival, called Yalda. At the California Zoroastrian Center in Westminster, about 100 people gathered Saturday night for a long ceremony with special foods and readings in anticipation of the solstice.

Many Native American groups also celebrate the solstice. Sunday, a Chumash joined with local environmentalists for a ceremony at the Bolsa Chica wetlands, while about 300 people gathered at Sunnyside Elementary School in Garden Grove for services of the American Indian Unity Church.

“I don’t celebrate Christmas, so (at solstice) we have a gift exchange for children and we just celebrate the changing of the seasons,” said Little Crow, a Dakota/Lakota Sioux who has run the nondenominational congregation since its birth in 1980.

“It’s a change in the time of life of all things,” Little Crow said. “Everything in nature is taking stock. Everything within the universe is taking stock. Whether we admit to it or not, we’re all on that web. One person rattles it, we’re all affected.”

Even local nature-lovers decided to get in on the solstice this year. The Sierra Club’s monthly gathering brought several dozen warm-jacketed, flashlight-toting hikers for a four-mile trek along horse trails in Fullerton on Tuesday evening. “Just because it’s different,” shrugged Sierra Club organizer Leora Jones. “It’s a good reason to get out and stretch your legs.”

But for astronomer Gary Channan, a physics professor at UC Irvine, the solstice is a mixed blessing.

“It’s great because . . . that’s when you can get the most work,” Channan said with a yawn Tuesday after a long night of star-gazing. “On the other hand, it makes for the longest workday.”