Stonehenge and the Winter Solstice Celebration

This year it was possible to celebrate the Winter Solstice at the world famous 5000 year old stone circle without having to travel real life to Wiltshire in the UK. There is now a fully scaled and accurately oriented representation of the ancient monument of Stonehenge in Second Life as it appears in reality to-day.

The winter solstice occurs when the sun is directly over the tropic of Capricorn, at its furthest point south of the equator, and lowest maximum altitude in the sky. This happens on the shortest day of the year in the Northern hemisphere, which is usually December 21^st. In some cultures this is considered to be the first day of winter, in others it is the seasonal mid-point.

The Pagan celebration of the winter Solstice is one of the oldest winter celebrations in the world. Ancient people were hunters and gatherers and the weather and seasons played an important part in their lives. Because of this many of them worshipped the sun and the moon. The winter solstice was seen as the reversal of the cycle of shortening days and lengthening nights and the birth or rebirth of their sun gods.

The Solstice was also known as the ‘Yule’ and this is the origin of many customs and traditions surrounding the Christian festival of Christmas. The Yule Log was a fire that was kept burning for the six days each side of the solstice. The celebration was about the truly important things in life: family, children, the home and looking forward to a bountiful year to come.

In real life the winter solstice this year occurred at 5:12pm local time, after the sun had gone down. Hundreds of people arrived at the historic stones early on December 22^nd to greet the next sunrise, only to be thwarted by lingering fog and overcast cloud. Perhaps they would have done better to stay at home with their computers and log in to Second Life.