“May the ever generous Mother Night give us her stars
that burn like flames of souls in our bodies of clay.
May every darkness of human being
turn in light every night.
May She bestow upon us playful joys
of immortal kingdoms filled with light.”

– Swami Veda Bharati

There is a tradition that we have been carrying on for years at the Himalayan Yoga Institute in Florence: celebrating together the Winter Solstice and the Return to the Light.

The Festival of Light is a very ancient and magical festival, rich in symbolism: it’s a transition celebration from darkness to light, that recalls the importance of transformation and rebirth. The Winter Solstice is the shortest and darkest day of the year from which light, and its extension throughout the day, grows wider and wider: a time of preparation for a new season and the rebirth of nature itself.

The term ‘solstice’ derives from the Latin language ‘solstitium’: ‘sol’ sun and ‘sistere’ stop, ‘steady sun’: it is the instant the Sun ceases to move away from the Earth, as if it were steady. The sun stops descending versus the celestial equator, only to reverse its path and start giving more hours of light again. And at this time its path almost seems to proceed more slowly.

In the Catholic culture, the Winter Solstice also acquires a religious significance as it is the beginning of the Christmas festivities; moreover, all the traditions celebrate the Winter Solstice festivities with fires, lights and candles, for light is a rebirth symbol that purifies and transforms, a reminder of the continuous dance between opposites that are complementary and essential to life, just as Nature reminds us in each moment that every situation carries within itself the seed of its opposite.

Over the years, this moment of transition has become a time for all the Institute’s members to gather together and to celebrate the season of silence, light, love and hope; but also to express gratitude, to contemplate and to meditate, to honour and to let go everything that is no longer needed in our lives, in order to welcome the new through a small symbolic ritual: in a fire and light ceremony, each participant is invited to write, in a small piece of paper, what he/she would like to let go of the year coming to an end, to burn the paper and to take a well-wishing word, which will be the guiding word for the new year.

But besides representing a moment of joy and sharing together, the Festival of Light is for all of us an important moment, the conclusion of a fundraising whose proceeds will go to support the SRSG Ashram and Swami Veda’s projects in India. Every year, in the period leading up to the Festival of Light, until the evening of its celebration, the Himalayan Yoga Institute of Florence opens its doors to the “Dianella’s Market – Handmade to give a Hand”, an initiative deeply felt by our dear Dianella, for which she used to produce with her own hands handicrafts and creations. Our feeling, when Dianella left her body, was to keep alive this noble initiative, involving friends and members of the Institute in creating and donating small handicrafts made with the heart (hats, bags, scarves, lota, T-shirts, etc.).

This year, also our dear friend Victor joined us and brought some Lakshmi Elephants, a small thanks token hand-made by women of local villages in Odhissa, part of an educational and economic development project supported by Wolfgang Bishoff and Bhagaban Dev.

This is the spirit with which every year we celebrate the Winter Solstice and the Festival of Light, at the presence of visible and invisible Beings of Light, who silently show us the path and allow our hearts to meet in a space of Love and Joy.

In loving service,

Ilaria