Achors Away Amirite

May your December be complex. May you enjoy the darkness and relish the cold. May you commune with the spirits of winter. May you lie awake, safe in bed, while the wind howls outside your window. May the gifts you give and receive be thoughtful, not frivolous. May you smell the evergreens on the frigid wind, and the spices from your warm kitchen.

This is the solstice, the still point of the sun, its cusp and midnight, the year’s threshold and unlocking, where the past lets go of and becomes the future; the place of caught breath, the door of a vanished house left ajar.

Winter Solstice at Karnak Temple ❄️☀️

▫️Winter Solstice, which usually falls on December 21st, is marked by unique solar alignments, particularly at Karnak Temple, where the sunrise aligns with the temple’s axis, illuminating the shrine to Amun-Ra, who embodied the sun in its daily journey across the sky, representing life, sustenance, and the cycle of day and night.

Amun Ra’s primary cult centre was at Thebes, where the Karnak Temple complex was dedicated to him. It is not certified, but not inconceivable, that the illuminating of the shrine to Amun-Ra was linked to the myth of Ra’s journey through the Underworld at night, symbolizing death and rebirth. This could parallel the idea of the sun’s “rebirth” after the Solstice.

All evidence suggests to us that the Egyptians had a deep understanding of celestial movements, and such understanding is reflected within their mythos, folklore, and even their architectural designs and temple structures. With the alignment of the sun being used almost as a divine measuring tool, dictating the locations and construction of temples, Egyptians developed sanctuaries that align directly with the sun’s movement during the Solstices and Equinoxes to this very day.