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Media Coverage of SolstiCelebrations
I’ve been blessed with good newspaper coverage of the SolstiCelebrations, respectful but having fun with us, too. We’re sort of the poster child for alternative in Dallas. Links to coverage go bad quickly at newspapers, so here are some excerpts.
Summer Solstice for Pagan Poets 1993
Club Dada
The Dallas Morning News
by Shermakaye Bass
June 24, 1993
The poets, led by grand poobah Joe Stanco, read their homages, inspired by a wild range of elements: love, Thomas Jefferson, Bosnia, the moon, the sun, pruning, apemen in caves. And while the readers took their jobs seriously, they hammed it up with goofy abandon, passing out fruit from a paper sack, anointing people's toes with St. John's wort.
Poet poobah Joe Stanco began the evening with a mantra. Garlanded in greenery and adorned with a feather crown, he spoke to the drumbeat of Jamal Mohamed and John Chamberlain, comparing the poet to the ancient shaman.
Amy Martin served as the goddess/co-poet hostess, offering an explanation of ancient rituals such as the maypole (it symbolizes consummation and subsequent birth) and ennumerating the special days on the pagan calendar summer solstice, Halloween, 12th Night, Holy Day, etc.
After a riveting comic political performance by Jeffrey Davis on Thomas Jefferson and America's lost garden of Eden, Ric Speed, Ms. Martin, Julie Ryan, Sam Modica, Mr. Stanco and Alan Gann read their works some good, some OK, but all delivered with true inspiration.
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Winter Solstice with John McMurphy 1993
Winfrey Point
The Dallas Morning News
by Shermakaye Bass
December 19, 1993
"It was very obvious to these people that the sun stood still in the sky. And way back when, they weren't sure if it was going to come back," says performance artist and poet Amy Martin, who with Walden Institute founder John McMurphy has organized a celebration at Winfrey Point on White Rock Lake to honor the shortest day of the year.
<snip>
The White Rock Winter Solstice celebration will be a complex, cross-cultural tribute to these and other traditions, starting with a candle-lighting ceremony and an invocation by Mr. McMurphy inspired by Lakota Sioux, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Taoist, African and Celtic cultures.
During the evening, the Dallas Kiyari Drummers will perform in the Japanese Kodo tradition. Dancing Tongue will offer a jazz-poetry interpretation of a Celtic departing prayer, and the multimythic concept of the World Tree. Dancers from Moving Collaborations, Martha Murphy and Peggy Lamb, will perform with poet Jeff Davis in a choreographed piece on the Greek myth of Hecate and the rebirth of the Sun King. And the Stanco Family will bring the tribute back to the present with a poetry/performance sendup of America's beloved Andy Williams family Christmas.
Interspersed between performances will be various rituals: the symbolic lighting of the yule log and the gathering of its ashes, the distributing of acorns to evoke good thoughts and luck for the new year.
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Summer SolstiCelebration 1995
The Dallas Morning News
by Margaret Putnam
June 16, 1995
…Just as important, the event has the authentic spirit: communal, participatory, "we're all one under the sun." This is not one of those deals where a few people perform as the hordes watch, cold drink in one hand and hot dog in the other. Everyone is meant to get into the act.
The rituals and celebrations come from all over the globe: China, the Alps, West Africa, Celtic Ireland, Jamaica, the Philippines. Dancing Tongue will enact Pegasus' mythic flight to the sun; the Chinese Lion will dance with the Chinese Dragon, men will perform a Celtic ritual with sheep-sheering blades, Irish step dancers will vault straight into the air, poets will chant, jugglers will juggle, drummers will drum.
…"This should open your heart up," Ms. Martin promises. "If you can get people to dance and make music together, you can heal White Rock Lake and the city. Our motto might be `peace through polka."'
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Summer SolstiCelebration 1995
The Dallas Morning News
by David Flick
June 17, 1995
…welcome Texas' longest season Saturday with ceremonies that are part global village and part Gong Show. The celebration will begin at 4:30 p.m. near the Bath House Cultural Center on the eastern shore of White Rock Lake. The highlight will be a 90-minute drum circle ceremony designed, Ms. Martin said, "to heal our community and to heal our lake." The ceremony will include encircling pregnant women in a celebration of fertility.
But the solstice program also includes a chicken dance, an eight-minute rendition of the hokeypokey, a Jeopardy theme song hum-along and a rendition of Oh! Susanna in Swedish.
In Europe, the coming of summer is celebrated in agricultural areas with bonfires, she said. Dallas, she noted, is not particularly rural, and the fire marshal frowns on bonfires.
But, she added, "we want people to realize that nature exists even in the deepest part of the city. White Rock Lake is our peaceful little jewel in the city."
And, she said, "We're trying to bring people back to the agricultural rhythms."
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Summer SolstiCelebration 1995
The Dallas Morning News
by Margaret Putnam
June 18, 1995
5:25 p.m.: Two men in jeans disappear under a red Pegasus puppet sculpture. As Tim Cloward reads a poem, Pegasus lumbers and lurches, blinks its big eyes, turns its head majestically. The bluejean legs prance and stumble.
The solstice celebration is under way.
6:00 p.m.: Near the Bath House, Ollimpaxqui is entertaining a sizable audience. Wearing red sarongs and bells around their ankles, the dancers stamp the asphalt emphatically but quickly, as though they're dancing on hot coals. The lead Aztec, in blue, picks up a flame and swirls it grandly overhead.
6:15 p.m.: The Maharlika Dancers are stepping lightly over bamboo poles back at the main stage. A tiny, dark-haired beauty in gold swivels her hips, moving under a gold parasol. A breeze causes her train to waft out.
6:35 p.m.: A man in a black T-shirt reads a poem having something to do with Santa Ana to a group sitting under the trees. The sound of West African drums from 200 yards away punctuates his voice.
7:35 p.m.: A woman about seven months pregnant undulates in a circle, surrounded by 20 drummers. Her gauze skirt rides low, revealing a tiny tattoo on the underside of her belly.
7:45 p.m.: I sit down on a grassy slope above the drummers, grateful that White Rock seems to be ant-free. By now the crowd has grown to about 3,000, the sun is low over the lake, and the mood is mellow.
7:50 p.m.: Brave Combo blasts forth. "Get up!" Carl Finch shouts, and miraculously, people do. Suddenly there's a gyrating, happy mob dancing on the asphalt.
9:10 p.m.: The Earth Run begins. It's dark now, the air is cooler, the lights of downtown twinkle in the distance. The drums pound out a steady rhythm, and men, women and children run slowly, their shirts and dresses flapping behind them, as they circle the drummers. Each step is supposed to be a prayer of healing - for the lake, for Dallas, for whatever needs healing.
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Summer SolstiCelebration 1996
The Dallas Morning News
by Rufus Coleman
June 22, 1996
"Before there was music, there was drumming, beating on hollow trees that were our first drums," Ms. Martin said. "We want to go back to the times when people met in the town square and everybody was a musician."
… Saturday morning, an open drum circle will give children the chance to make a racket.
"It's an absolute riot," Mrs. Martin said. "Usually kids aren't really supposed to make noise. This is one of those instances where it's their job to make noise, and they really take it seriously."
In addition to afternoon concerts and classes in drum-playing and drum-making, visitors can wander among music "villages" - tents where drummers will play the rhythms of different parts of the world.
"You can go to the rhythm that speaks to you," Mrs. Martin said. "You don't even have to have a drum. A lot of people just bring buckets or boxes and start beating away."
At Point Cacophony, people can make their own drums from a giant heap of items salvaged from the lake and junkyards - or their own materials. What's left of the heap will be recycled.
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Winter SolstiCelebration1996
Dallas Observer
by Jimmy Fowler
December 19, 1996
4th Annual Winter SolstiCelebration '96: Every time a press release describes another one of Amy Martin's seasonal observances, the vision of angry figures holding a wet, beating heart comes to mind--the heart is mine, and the angry folks aren't pagans, but Amy and her fellow organizers who caught some flak from ultra-sensitive participants because I described her solstice festivals as containing "pagan rituals." As it happens, the 4th Annual Winter SolstiCelebration does not offer virgin sacrifices to Pan, but rings in the season by making people more aware of the great natural cycles that rule their lives. There'll be Native American-style heartbeat drumming; Tibetan singing bowls; worldwide winter solstice lore; lectures and meditations; and a lineup of local poets including C.J. Critt, Jeff Davis, and Clebo Rainey. The astrological celebration begins at 10 p.m. at the First Unitarian Church of Dallas, 4015 Normandy at Preston. It's free. Call (214) 528-3990.
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SummerSolstiCelebration 1997
The Dallas Morning News
by Catherine Cuellar
June ?, 1997
Sun down With sponsors reluctant to fund an event associated with paganism, the big SummerSolstiCelebration has ended after four years.
The longest day of the year, which also has significance in the Japanese calendar, in Native American cultures and for Catholics as the birthday of St. John the Baptist, "is a perfect day to bring people together," says SummerSolstiCelebration producer Amy Martin.
"There was a real desire, not only for the communal drumming event where everyone dances and celebrates just like we used to so long ago, but there was a desire for an event for White Rock Lake, something that celebrated the naturalness of the lake itself. " Since future plans to dredge the lake will limit accessibility, the thousands of people who used to participate in SummerSolstiCelebration can now choose from four new, smaller events.
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Winter SolstiCelebration 1997
The Dallas Morning News
by Catherine Cuellar
December 19, 1997
The long-standing tradition of a Winter SolstiCelebration returns to the First Unitarian Church of Dallas with more ceremony than before. The event Sunday, the actual day of the solstice, begins by honoring darkness, with Gay Mallon leading a meditation on loss and resurrection. Music and poetry will follow, and the church's senior pastor, Laurel Hallman, will conclude the darkness-focused part of the evening with a chant honoring the memory of lost loved ones.
The event hinges on the Lord of Misrule, who represents chaos between darkness and light. During this transition, participants can enjoy refreshments and write their prayers on cardboard wheels.
Their prayer wheels are then used in the spiral dance, which begins the second half.
International entertainment in the latter part of the evening includes storytelling and mariachi music led by Dennis Gonzales, the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance by Morris Dancers from the North Texas Traditional Dance Society, and the Inuit legend "Skeleton Woman" told and danced by Lora Cain and John Trimble. Finally, the Lord of Misrule, played by Mark Clive, will lead a world-beat percussion procession outside for the lighting of the yule log.
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Winter SolstiCelebration 1997
The Dallas Morning News
by Anne Belli Gesalman
December 20, 1997
Amy Martin, who is organizing the fifth annual Winter SolstiCelebration in Dallas, says she believes the solstice is probably the oldest celebrated holiday. "It probably predates every holiday that we've got. ... For a lot of people, it is the main spiritual event for the year. " Ms. Martin, who runs an organization called Celestial Rhythm Celebrations, said she expects between 350 and500 people to attend this year's event, which will be held from 7 to 10 p.m. Sunday at First Unitarian Church in Dallas.
Most who attend will be women, she said, because the solstice celebration focuses on nature, which often is denoted with feminine symbolism. Ms. Martin said the participants also will include couples of all races; people of mixed marriages who are looking for a common ground; older adults who recall solstice celebrations from rural, agricultural upbringings; "grown-up hippies," and many people who are tired of this season's commercialism.
For some, the solstice observance takes the place of the winter holidays celebrated by mainstream religions, Ms. Martin said. For others, it complements them.
"About half of the people who attend winter solstice go on to celebrate Christmas or Hanukkah," Ms. Martin said. A solstice celebration "supplies the earth-centered spirituality that Christianity or Judaism don't always cover very well. " Lucia Ferrara Bettler, a former nun who organizes a similar celebration in Houston every year, agrees that the observances of winter solstice and Christmas can - and even should - co-exist.
<snip>
Any good religion has to be about the connection between the divine and us and the earth. " Ms. Martin said the Dallas celebration will be divided into two parts - the first focusing on darkness and the second on light. A group of men and women forming a circle and leading a chant honoring the elements will open the event, she said. Meditation, singing and poetry readings will take up most of the first half, which will conclude with a solemn candlelighting ceremony.
During intermission, participants will be invited to post their prayers on a "prayer wheel," which will be spun - or "activated" - by people as they pass it while dancing in a line.
The second half will continue at the lively pace set in the intermission. Japanese drummers will chase away bad spirits, Ms. Martin said. There also will be storytelling, a high school mariachi band playing Mexican carols, a parody of a traditional English dance and a mythical dance borrowed from the Inuit called "Skeleton Woman. " The celebration will end with observance of the "world tree," which symbolizes life, and the lighting of a Yule log outside, Ms. Martin said.
<snip>
Ms. Martin acknowledged that the celebration may sound hokey to those unfamiliar with earth-centered religions. Each year, she said, she has difficulty getting the free media announcements that are granted to many other groups sponsoring holiday celebrations.
Nonetheless, winter solstice celebrations have been around for centuries, she said, and many people worldwide and in Dallas will keep the traditions alive.
"We are missing something if we don't acknowledge where we came from," she said. "It's like we are cutting off our childhood. "
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Winter SolstiCelebration 1997
The Dallas Morning News
by John McCoy
December 22, 1997
On the shortest day of the year, the speakers at Sunday's SolstiCelebration at First Unitarian Church of Dallas offered multiple variations on the theme of embracing darkness. For organizer Amy Martin, it was working against racism by understanding the ways Western culture often assigns negative qualities to people with dark skin.
For grief counselor Gay Mallon, who survived an aneurysm and two brain operations this year, it was giving compassion to loved ones and receiving it from them when death is near.
And for poet Lazette Jackson, facing darkness meant eschewing goody-goody ideas about spirituality and owning up to the baser urges inside everyone.
<snip>
Echoing centuries-old rituals of seasonal change, the ceremony traveled from the themes of facing darkness to moving into light and ended with the lighting of a yule log.
Along the way, it presented an aggressively multicultural pastiche, with elements including Japanese drumming, Jewish prayers, Celtic harp music and ancient Sumerian mythology.
Mary Link, attending the celebration for the second time, said she appreciated the evening's diverse source material.
"I think it embraces a little of everything, which is nice because the solstice doesn't belong to just one spirituality," she said.
Ms. Link stopped by the prayer wheels during the ceremony's intermission to write down the name of her mother, who died two years ago, she said.
In her talk, Ms. Mallon related several stories of grief and loss that people associate with the holiday season. She encouraged the audience not to shy away from death and the "shadowy side of real life. " "May you experience compassion," she said, "for it's only by embracing the darkness that we can celebrate the light. "
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1998 Summer SolstiCelebration
The Dallas Morning News
by staff
June 13, 1998
The Summer SolstiCelebration, last held in 1996, will return this month to mark the beginning of summer with drumming, dancing, herb lore and other activities. The event, held in cooperation with Celestial Rhythm Celebrations, will be from 6 to 8 p.m. June 21 at the Fair Park Amphitheatre, Robert D. Cullum Boulevard and Grand Avenue. Amy Martin will speak on myths and traditions of the summer solstice, a holiday for many people whose beliefs include ties to nature. She also will discuss ceremonial herb lore and ritual; Lazette Jackson will be goddess of ceremonies. Special guest percussionists will be the group ConunDrum. Participants are asked to bring baked goods or fruits to share, percussion instruments and a blanket.
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Celestial Rhythm Celebrations
Dallas Observer
September 1998
by Jimmy Fowler
Best of Dallas Award
"Best Place to Mark the New Season"
"Their seasonal celebrations that hail the arrival of autumn, winter, spring and summer regularly attract hundreds of people of all (and no) religious denominations to fraternize with drum circles, singing, chants, group dances, and, of course, plain and simple conversation. Great fellowship."
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Winter SolstiCelebration 1998
The Dallas Morning News
by Berta Delgado
December 22, 1997
"Since the summer solstice last June, we have watched the sun as it traverses from east to west across the sky, go from being nearly overhead to hovering low to the south," Amy Martin, producer of the fourth annual Winter SolstiCelebration, said to the beat of a drum in a sanctuary heavy with incense. "And there, at its furthest point, the sun sets at the same time in the same place for three nights in a row…
Ms. Martin, who has celebrated the solstices since she was a teen, said it's important to recognize the oldest holiday of them all.
"It takes you back to the point in history where everything was tied to earth and seasonal cycles," she said. "It was a time before nations and religions."…
<snip>
"The winter solstice is a renewal time," poet Lazette Jackson said. "We celebrate the balance, the longest day and shortest day, life and death. The two are part of the circle of life."
For Kwasi Siaw-Lattey, -in-hand with his drum-playing, said the Richardson music therapist.
"When nature is celebrated, a natural instrument should come into play," he said of his hour-glass shaped drum made of all natural materials. "The rhythm, it plays with other rhythms and it forms a family of worship."
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Winter SolstiCelebration 2000
Dallas Observer
by Mark Hughes
December 19, 2000
Nothing will send a Dallasite into a panic faster than an SUV's broken air conditioner in July. Summer commands fear and respect while winter is merely a brief relief from the angry sun god. Already Winter Solstice is upon us and, after this week, the sun will start getting higher in the sky with longer days on their way.
To mark the occasion, Celestial Rhythm Celebrations presents Winter SolstiCelebration. Dedicated to putting the ritual back into this astronomical event, Celestial Rhythm Celebrations offers a program divided into two halves--spiritual and festive--with an intermission to cleanse the soul as the season begins.
The first half, called Embraceable Darkness, combines poetry readings, symbolic dances, chants, and other faith-inspired performances with audience participation. Everyone is asked to bring rattles and shakers to define the space as sacred and small flashlights or lighters to help symbolically bring back the light.
During the intermission, the audience is asked to transfer all of their negative energy onto a Bogeyman, an Indian tradition where villagers would hand off their bad mojo to the phantom by touching his cloak. After he takes the sins into exile with him and leaves the room full of good luck, the second half begins.
Called Celebrating the Light, it starts with ritual dancing through the center of a sun. Drum ensemble Constellation and flamenco jazz group American Bedouin perform, followed by more poetry, monologues, and a burning of a Yule Log.
The organizers and performers may be accused of being a little creatively anachronistic, but if that's a crime in an age when wiring a Christmas wreath to the grill of a Range Rover is an accepted holiday tradition, then perhaps the old ways should enjoy a little more observing. Look for us taking the chill off with a stiff belt from a flagon of mead.
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Winter SolstiCelebration 2000
The Dallas Morning News
by Terri Langford
December 21, 2000
"Winter solstice draws from our first attempt at keeping a calendar," said Amy Martin, founder of Celestial Rhythm Celebrations, a group that will sponsor its eighth-annual winter solstice celebration at Cathedral of Hope in Dallas. "We needed assigned times to meet."
Once the harvest was in, ancient cultures began looking at full moons and special times marked by the skies for celebrations and gatherings.
<snip>
Today, many people are rediscovering the solstice as a spiritual celebration.
"It serves a lot of needs - a lot of people's psychological needs and their social needs," Ms. Martin said. "It gives them a place to come together and see their spiritual paths recognized."
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Summer SolstiCelebration 2002
Dallas Observer
by Mark Hughes
June 20, 2002
Celestial Rhythm Celebrations' Summer SolstiCelebration began as a poet's roundtable that met regularly at Club Dada in Deep Ellum. One of the nights fell on the same day as the summer solstice--known to most folks as the first day of summer--so Dallas literary fixture and poet Joe Stanco, who passed away June 5, penned a lighthearted poem for the occasion called "Pagan Poets." Stanco's inspiration in turn inspired attendee Amy Martin to begin organizing public celebrations for both summer and winter solstice.
Summer SolstiCelebration has changed a lot over the years, mainly moving outdoors in observance of the Native American tradition of outdoor worship. "We are a social people, and we need cues for gathering," Martin says. "And when you celebrate the solstice you are part of a tradition that goes back thousands of years."
Beginning with yoga to loosen everyone up, the event moves on to dancing, labyrinth walking (meditation through walking circular paths), picnicking, a procession and a drum jam by the group Constellation, then cleanup and shutdown before midnight. Yes, even the cosmos must adhere to a curfew, it seems, or at least public park rules.
"People start to get the fact they are living on a planet," Martin says. "Most of us go through every day thinking that we live in a novel where we just turn the pages. For the four or five hours we are there at the celebration, we create a community where spirituality is a big part of our lives and we can all live together and get along. For one evening we say that life can be this way.
"No matter what the newspapers say, we are a good people. We create the world that we wish to be on this one day, and we try to carry this with us for the next six months when we can dip into the solstice well and remind ourselves again that life is not about collecting the most toys."
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Summer SolstiCelebration 2003
The Dallas Morning News
by David Flick
June 18, 2003
Amy Martin phoons because it's fun.
But it's more.
"It's about feeling a moment. Most of what we do is mundane. You live for the 10 percent of life that is memorable," said Ms. Martin, 47, a writer who lives east of White Rock Lake in Dallas.
"The philosophy of phooning is that it makes you stop and capture the moment. It's almost like meditating."
Part performance art, part high school prank, phooning consists of being photographed while frozen in a running position, preferably in an unusual or interesting setting.
There's a Web site, of course.
Phoons.com includes more than 800 photos that depict - to pick a few random examples - phooning at a dentist's office, crashing a wedding picture and posing in front of the Tower of Pisa.
Ms. Martin is planning to submit her own contribution. At the annual Summer SolstiCelebration on Saturday at Big Thicket on White Rock Lake, she will organize a circle of phooners in what she hopes will be the largest collective phoon ever photographed.
The current record is 32.
"We'll beat that easily," she said. "For a peace freak, I'm pretty competitive."
John Darrow, the man who invented phooning, is skeptical. Not just any phoon will do.
<snip>
Like other devoted phoonists, Mr. Darrow begins by describing phooning as purely a lark, but then waxes philosophical.
"It takes courage to be silly in public, and it takes creativity to come with a really excellent phoon picture," he said.
Ms. Martin, who has organized the Summer SolstiCelebrations for the past nine years, said she intends to organize the circle phoon as a prelude to the solstice service, an event with spiritual overtones.
But the phooning itself will be nondenominational, and she intends to take a few minutes to show people the proper pose.
"I wanted something for the event that was joyous and fun," she said. She thinks phooning also answers a higher call.
"Anything that makes people stop for a moment is good," she said. "Even if it's not necessarily thoughtful, phooning is very yogic in its own way."
And very democratic.
"I can be overly serious about some things," she acknowledged. "But one thing I like about phooning is that its shows that we're all one. People are different, but everyone can phoon."
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Summer SolstiCelebration 2003
Dallas Observer
by Mark Hughes
June 19, 2003
Checking our electricity bills, it would appear that it's been summer for more than a month already. But, alas, the official first day of summer is Saturday. It's the longest day of the year, also known as the summer solstice, or, alternatively, the formal decree that, "It's only going to get worse from here." So the choices are: Stock up on sunscreen and Freon for the long, hot summer, or horde the nonperishable food items and telecommute until Labor Day. Pick the latter, and you'll have our eternal envy and a lovely pasty complexion. Choose the former, and you might as well revel in your insanity with your sun-loving brethren during SolstiCelebration, the annual shindig thrown by Celestial Rhythm Celebrations. The picnic, performances and ceremony--taking place (mercifully) in the evening, mainly--honors the earth's natural cycle and, here's the best part, the beginning of months of shorter days and less sunlight. This year's SolstiCelebration kicks off at 4 p.m. beneath the trees of The Big Thicket on White Rock Lake with picnicking and an array of activities involving those leafy friends. There's the Peace Tree, the Healing Tree, the Memory Tree, the Peace Crane Tree and the Singing Tree. The first four involve tying fabrics or objects to branches to honor or say a prayer, and the final is Jimmy Barcus and friends performing live music, though probably not up a tree. In addition, the early events also include storytelling, Kids' Corner, yoga lessons in the grove and a series of spirit walks and labyrinths (the walking-while-meditating type, not the kind with David Bowie with cat-eye makeup and a sock down his slacks). The Hour of Joy rings in at 6 p.m. when there will be several dance performances and a magic show for the kids. Finally, the Summer Solstice Service starts at 7 p.m. with several ritual performances honoring the earth and the sun with poetry, dance and meditation. Bring gas or electric lanterns or candles in glass holders to illuminate the woods after dark.
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Summer SolstiCelebration 2003
The Dallas Morning News
Photographer Brad Loper
June 22, 2003
About 80 people - and at least one dog - gathered Saturday at White Rock Lake to break the world record for largest group phoon, in which participants pose as if frozen in midrun. The previous record was 32. The event was part of the ninth annual Summer SolstiCelebration.
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Summer SolstiCelebration 2003
The Dallas Morning News
by Kristen Holland
July 19, 2003
After organizing the seasonal celebration for the last nine years, the writer recently decided that the heat is too unforgiving to continue.
"Each year at Summer SolstiCelebration, I've had at least one volunteer pass out from the heat, and the last thing I want is to damage those who help," Ms. Martin wrote in an e-mail to members of the local earth-centered religious community. "I'd like to see a coalition of groups adopt the event, but I do think it should be moved to the spring or fall."
Personal heat-related health concerns and limited funding also led to her decision.
Through the years, the event - which celebrates the longest day and shortest night of the year - has evolved from a consortium of pagan poets to a labyrinth walk and spiritual procession to an eclectic celebration of life.
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Winter SolstiCelebration 2003
Dallas Observer
by Shannon Sutlief
December 18, 2003
There are many symbols for this time of year. There's the Nativity for religious Christmas, and Santa and Rudolph for secular Christmas. A menorah for Hanukkah, and--according to Friends--there's the Hanukkah Armadillo who delights kids with tales of the Festival of Lights. Kwanzaa and Los Posados have candles and light, too, but no talking animals or other caricatures fit for wrapping paper, plush dolls and costumes. Winter solstice doesn't have its own mass-marketed, kid-friendly face, either, but it could. Let us introduce SunMan. He's cute, he's shiny, and he won't burn your retinas if you look directly at him. But he does symbolize the power of light that burns even brighter after the darkness of winter. And we think he's just the thing to get even more people interested in the ancient tradition of winter solstice, when the hunters and gatherers stopped their hard labor and could finally kick back and enjoy the fruits of their labor (quite a contrast to how the holidays make us busier now). We mean, if a huge festival with hundreds of people coming together in joyful noise each year won't attract attention, then maybe SunMan will. If you can't beat the commercial appeal, then join it, right?
This is the 11th year that Amy Martin and her Celestial Rhythm Celebrations have honored traditions of light and dark with Winter SolstiCelebration. This ceremony of earth-based beliefs and rituals started with a couple of hundred people gathered at a venue on White Rock Lake. Then it moved to the First Unitarian Church. When the celebration outgrew that place, it moved to its current home at the Cathedral of Hope, the gay and lesbian congregation at Cedar Springs and Inwood roads.
But Winter SolstiCelebration isn't just for people who mark "other" in the religion box on census forms. Though 65 percent of the participants in last year's demographic study consider themselves "earth spiritualists," which includes Native Americans, pagans, Wiccans and more, between 10 and 15 percent are Christians, who supplement their biblical beliefs with a love of the earth. The rest of the pie graph is filled with Buddhists and, Martin says, people with their own systems such as "The Church of the Imaginary Friend."
All of these find a place in Winter SolstiCelebration. The rituals, performances and traditions draw from many different belief systems. The main speaker this year is Lama Dudjom Dorjee, who will be accompanied by members of the Karma Thegsum Choling Tibetan Buddhist Center performing Sanskrit chants translated into English. There will also be dancing, drumming, poetry, storytelling, video and the saying of names of those who have passed. But the highlight is when the three days of the solstice's dark period are condensed into three minutes of complete darkness and silence followed by "bringing back the light" with an Egyptian temple fire dance and the audience participating by turning on their flashlights (candles became too messy with the wax cleanup). The service ends with drumming, dancing and passing through sun and moon gates, which, Martin says, can be a little overwhelming to newbies who aren't used to 700 people divided into two circles dancing to primitive drumming. The calm returns when everyone grabs slices of bread and cookies that have been made by participants and other benefactors and sits in the cathedral to literally break bread and talk, making the one time a year that many solo-practicing spiritualists get to spend time with other like-minded people. Grab a flashlight, bake some cookies and dress in celestial clothing to go with the cosmic theme, and experience a noncommercial holiday treat. As Martin says, after a decade, they still haven't managed to make money yet.
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Winter SolstiCelebration 2004
Dallas Observer
by Michelle Martinez
December 18, 2003
Enough with shopping, present wrapping, tree trimming and candy cane snacking. Bring on the yuletide yoga, chanting, water communion and ancestor honoring! Huh? In case your priest forgot to mention it, long before baby Jesus was a twinkle in the Virgin Mary's eye, long before any Maccabee lit a lamp, people were gathering to commemorate the Winter Solstice, the first day of winter and the shortest day/longest night of the year. Because it is a seasonal rather than a religious event, celebrations of the winter solstice bring together people of many beliefs. The 12th Winter SolstiCelebration will feature rituals, songs, poetry, dances, ceremonies and much more, all with the aim of exploring "how darkness can regenerate us and how light can redeem." The event is free, but do bring your own flashlight.
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Winter SolstiCelebration 2005
The Dallas Morning News
by Kara Kunkel
December 16, 2005
The tough news: Wednesday is the longest night of the year. The good news: You can shake off the gloom at an upbeat gathering Tuesday night called Winter SolstiCelebration. This Earth-spirit event at the Cathedral of Hope church brings together a tapestry of people and rituals that meld ancient and New Age traditions to celebrate the shortest day of the year (also known as the first day of winter). The practice of celebrating the change of seasons predates Christianity and many other organized religions, and it cuts across geographic and cultural boundaries. The event's organizer, Celestial Rhythm Celebrations, brings together singers, dancers, storytellers and other entertainers to help get everyone into the spirit. Bring the kids; this is a family event.
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Winter SolstiCelebration 2005
D Magazine
BEST BET Winter SolstiCelebration
You needn't be a Christian to wish joy to the world this season. Get into a sacred state of mind with yoga, dance, music, and rituals like a water communion, Shout Out for Gratitude, and a three-minute passage through silent darkness. Father Winter bestows gifts on the good and naughty; Boudreaux T. Wyldmon, Swamp King, and Hoodoo Mage dispenses slips of wisdom and insanity. Sounds like crazy fun. Dec 21, 7-10 pm. Cathedral of Hope, 5910 Cedar Springs Rd. 972-504-6661. www.moonlady.com.
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Winter SolstiCelebration 2006
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Fri, Dec. 15, 2006
Pick of the Week: Dallas
By Mark Lowry
If you don't feel at one with yourself, you'd better get that way, and fast. It's not so hard to do, even at this busy and stressful time of year. Try some chilling out at the 14th annual Winter SolstiCelebration, where there will be singing, dancing, yoga, drumming, a ceremony and a social hour with "groove music," food, demonstrations of origami peace cranes and photos with Father Winter.
Winter SolstiCelebration: We Are One
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Winter SolstiCelebration 2006
DMN Religion section 12/16
by Elizabeth Langton
Embrace Dark, Then Dance
RECHARGE YOUR BATTERIES: The event honors ancient observances of life's cycle of rebirth with singing, dancing, storytelling, yoga and ritual ceremonies, said organizer Amy Martin, also known as the Moonlady. It celebrates people's connection to the earth and one another, she said.
Most of the 700-plus participants consider themselves spiritual but do not follow specific faiths. "They have no church but have a deep need for community," Ms. Martin said. "This is our gathering of the tribe every year."
WINTER WHAT: Solstice means "sun stands still." Winter solstice, the first day of winter, marks the year's shortest day and longest night (this year it's Thursday). The sun drops low on the horizon and seems to stop moving for three days. Those days are represented in the ceremony by three minutes of darkness, Ms. Martin said. "We try to recast the darkness as something not to be feared but something regenerative," she said.
THE SUN ALSO RISES: The audience turns on flashlights in a return-of-light ceremony, then the activity begins. "It is very participatory, a great big energy blast. People say they leave feeling very energized," she said.
DETAILS: Music begins at 6:30; the ceremony runs from 7 to 9. A social hour follows. Cathedral of Hope is at 5910 Cedar Springs Road in Dallas. Admission is free, but donations of Saltine crackers and canned meats are requested for the church's food pantry. Take baked goods to share and a flashlight. For more information and photos of past events, visit www.moonlady .com. Or call the hotline at 214-446-0707.
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Winter SolstiCelebration 2006
Dallas Observer, Night & Day section
12/21
by Michelle Martinez
Enough with shopping, present wrapping, tree trimming and candy cane snacking. Bring on the yuletide yoga, chanting, water communion and ancestor honoring! Huh? In case your priest forgot to mention it, long before baby Jesus was a twinkle in the Virgin Mary's eye, long before any Maccabee lit a lamp, people were gathering to commemorate the Winter Solstice, the first day of winter and the shortest day/longest night of the year. Because it is a seasonal rather than a religious event, celebrations of the winter solstice bring together people of many beliefs. The 12th Winter SolstiCelebration will feature rituals, songs, poetry, dances, ceremonies and much more, all with the aim of exploring "how darkness can regenerate us and how light can redeem." The event is free, but do bring your own flashlight. The Winter SolstiCelebration takes place at Cathedral of Hope, 5910 Cedar Springs Road, from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. Tuesday. Visit www.moonlady.com.
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