Celebrate the power and majesty of the sun with The Solstice Yearbook . The sun powers all life on earth and as we travel through a year its strength grows and diminishes, creating our seasons and impacting our moods and energies. The Solstice Yearbook shows us how to understand and follow the cycles of the sun in order to align our own bodies and minds with nature’s rhythm. Drawing on ancient traditions , folklore, and rituals this seasonal guidebook is packed with ideas for celebrating the Solar year, from midnight Solstice rituals to Midwinter fires and Equinox rebalancing tips. • Embrace the power and mystery of the Winter Solstice . • Mark the awakening of the Spring Equinox , as warmth returns and nature blossoms. • Celebrate the joy and magical energy of the Summer Solstice . • Retreat into the cosiness of the Autumn Equinox as the nights begin to draw in. Each chapter offers a chance to learn something new, from seasonal rituals and recipes to ancient folklore. Together we will delve into the mythology and stories of each festival, looking at how these dates have been celebrated for centuries, as well as seeing what they can teach us about the way we live today. There are 10 ways to celebrate each season, along with practical crafts that embody the spirit of the solstices. Victoria Harrison is a homes and lifestyle writer and the author of two non-fiction lifestyle books, Rewild Your Home , and Happy by Design . She is also the author of the popular Substack Seasonal Living with Victoria Harrison where she writes regularly on all aspects of living in tune with the natural world and has a loyal and active community of readers and subscribers. Have you ever felt a rush of energy at Midsummer? Or felt a need to rebalance in the autumn, or a longing to hunker down and light candles at Midwinter? If so you’re already answering the call of an ancient solar calendar; one that’s been guiding us for centuries and continues to gently shine a path for us to follow, if we know where to look. Sun worship is one of the oldest practices on earth. We instinctively turn our faces to the sun, we bathe under it, and our cultures were built on the worship of it. Our ancient history is filled with sun gods and goddesses, and our landscapes are peppered with monuments to the solstices and equinoxes dating back thousands of years. But what does this have to do with the way we live today? Well, actually, quite a lot. We’re still deeply solar-powered creatures, whether we realize it or not, and the sun affects everything we do. As we travel through a year, the strength of the sun grows and diminishes, creating our seasons and impacting our moods and energies. Think about how you feel at the height of summer when powered by long hours of sunlight compared to your mood in the depths of winter when you’re cocooned in long hours of darkness; the difference can be dramatic. Our ancestors instinctively understood this power and followed the phases of the sun closely, aligning their lives with the solstices and equinoxes. They built calendars, rituals, and festivals around these key solar dates in the year. In recent times however, many of us have stepped away from a seasonal way of living in a bid to maintain a constant level of productivity all year round. But when we are constantly switched on and active, we can miss the seasonal cues that are trying so clearly to tell us when to rest. Following a solstice-based calendar helps us to adjust our energies to match the natural world and discover ways to work with the phases of the sun, rather than against them. If you’ve ever felt out of step with the natural world or stressed with the pace of modern life, finding your way back to a solar calendar can help to weave a slower rhythm back into your year. Everything unfolds at its own gentle pace in the solstice calendar, and daylight hours don’t drastically change from one day to the next; instead they increase or decrease slowly by just a few minutes each day, getting longer in the build-up to the Summer Solstice, and then decreasing as we turn towards the Winter Solstice; and this slow and steady turning of the year can be a deeply peaceful rhythm to follow. Following simple solar rituals can also allow us to pick up threads that link us back to our past. There’s ancient magic to be found at every moment in the year, but this is particularly heightened around the time of the equinoxes and solstices, where myths and folklore abound. As we work through this book we’ll delve into the mythology and stories of each festival, looking at how they’ve been celebrated for centuries, as well as seeing what they can teach us about the way we live today. We’ll uncover the stories and myths that swirl around them, as well as discovering modern rituals to follow and seasonal crafts to try for each. We’ll set intentions at the Spring Equinox, feast under the Midsummer sun, bottle the sun at the Autumn Equinox, and light go