I and Maggie celebrated Winter Solstice this year by going to the Buddhist temple in the north bay called Green Gulch or Green Dragon temple. It was a beautiful cleansing experience which allowed us to get rid of stress accumulated this year and reconnect with nature and ourselves.

We meditated at length and listened to the lecture by one of the monks. Then we drank tea with muffins baked right there and hung out at the garden. Lunch was cooked by the monks with what they grow on the farm. Everything is organic. They have organic gardening seminars where they teach how to sustain a garden year around without any chemicals.

I bought some veggies and cooked roasted potatos with rosemary at home. They have a New Years celebration scheduled this year. If you are curios at all and love celebrating it in nature, I recommend calling them and finding out the details.

The monk giving the lecture talked about the Winter Solstice and emphasized the significance of this event for the nature. It means the shortest day and the longest night (for us in the Northern hemisphere).

This year the winter solstice synchronized with the full moon, which was especially significant, since both the night, the dark and the moon are the symbols of the sacred feminine, which was the center of the Winter Solstice celebration for thousands of years.

Happy Winter Solstice!!!

Additional Info:

I did a multi media story about Green Gulch for my online journalism class at SFSU. This is how I found out about this place. Kind of fun to watch.