Area residents celebrate winter solstice

[icymist]

Dinah Jackson knows the sun will come up tomorrow, but she's not about to take it for granted.

Just as practitioners of earth-based religions have celebrated since ancient times, Jackson pauses each winter solstice to acknowledge the equal length of day and night. It's when Jackson thanks the sun for its returning rays and for its promise that light will prevail and another life-summer will eventually follow.

"This began in back in the old days when people weren't as aware of the science behind the seasons as we are now," said the self-described priestess in training. "To them, with the darkness and cold of winter, it would have felt like the world was going to end. So they would do their best to appease the sun to return, to bring an end to all this death and bring life back again."

Thursday, though, winter solstice to Jackson and other practitioners of the NeoPagan faith of Wicca, the holiday means something more metaphoric.
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