Postcards Travel Album
Uluru-Kata Tjuta
Australian Druid Assembly

Episode 9, Thursday 21 June, 2001

The Winter Solstice Celebration

We all drift around between 4:30 and 5:30 pm, checking we have our own props, and confirming the things we are responsible for are ready. Heather is frantically trying to cook dinner so we can eat beforehand, but finally acknowledges it can't be done. We prefer feasting afterwards anyway. Vivienne has invited an Israeli couple to join us in circle, and I've invited a pair of U.S. teachers from Micronesia. They will meet us on the lookout for sunset. We meet at the cabin to check everything and begin arguing, and miss sunset. But we head up, find the Israeli couple waiting. We wait until everyone else has gone - not long, it's getting cold, and lay out the circle. No sign of the other pair. I go back to check, and they had the time wrong. They promise they'll be there in 10 minutes. We wait. It grows dark.

Finally it is completely dark, and we begin without them, slowly entering from the west, greeting east, and circling to our places. As Mabon and Ritualist I am in the Southwest, across from the Druid Advisor and Pendragon at NE. We open the circle, asking for peace in each quarter and the blessings of the quarters and elements. The Druid then speaks, under the blaze of stars, and tells us of the meaning of the season. How darkness is in both the physical world and touches our souls, and can seem endless. But here, now, there is hope - there will be a spark of light, that will grow and flame within and without us until it blazes. We stand in silent meditation, in cold, in complete darkness, and think of the shadows and night.

Then the Mabon lights a candle.

She asks, as youngest present, that we nurture the spark of hope, for future generations as well as ourselves, and that we pledge to continue our roles as protectors and nurturers of the world on behalf of all those who will come to take up the torch from us, throughout the world.

She carries her candle of youth, of first light, to each in the circle, and lights the new candle they each hold.

The Druid then speaks, to advise the Mabon of relevant druid principles and triads. The Ritualist calls for festivities! and in the cold we gather round, read poetry, play music, and try to sing together. It's hard to hold a note, but we try. We speak of Assembly business, issues that touch Druids nationally. We then ask if anyone else wishes to speak. The young Israeli man does. He is moved, and he wishes us to send some peace to his homeland, for all he has ever lived with is the darkness of war. I smile, realising that what to us may be ritual words resonate with his life in a way we can forget is possible.

We give thanks to the quarters and elements, swear our Druid vow, and close the ceremony. We then feast! once we get the stove working. It's a fun night. The two teachers eventually find us and apologise - they'd gone to a different lookout, not realising that there was more than one in Yulara.

I sleep under the stars and watch the wheel turn.