Celebrate the Solstice: Honoring the Earth's Seasonal Rhythms through Festival and Ceremony [Paperback]

Richard Heinberg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1993

This book is an accessible, engaging tool to help people enrich their lives through the observance of ancient, astronomically determined Earth festivals. It assists us to recover an experience that had deep meaning for the ancients and that is now increasingly relevant to a world facing environmental challlenges. Seasonal festivals are not meant to be cultural relics. They are joyous, fun, mischievous, profound, life-affirming events that connect us deeply with the Earth, the heavens, and the wellspring of being within us. This book encourages us to undertake full-bodied, ecstatic seasonal renewal by providing information on the history and meaning of the solstices with practical suggestions on how to celebrate them now.

Product Details

• Paperback: 199 pages
• Publisher: Quest Books; 1st edition (September 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0835606937
• ISBN-13: 978-0835606936
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.8 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,028,470 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Richard Heinberg is the author of ten books including:

The End of Growth: Adapting to our New Economic Reality (June 2011)
Blackout: Coal, Climate, and the Last Energy Crisis (2009)
Peak Everything: Waking Up to the Century of Declines (2007)
The Oil Depletion Protocol: A Plan to Avert Oil Wars, Terrorism and Economic Collapse (2006)
Powerdown: Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon World (2004)
The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies (2003)

He is Senior Fellow-in-Residence of the Institute and is widely regarded as one of the world's foremost Peak Oil educators. He has authored scores of essays and articles that have appeared in such journals as Nature, The Ecologist, The American Prospect, Public Policy Research, Quarterly Review, Z Magazine, Resurgence, The Futurist, European Business Review, Earth Island Journal, Yes!, Pacific Ecologist, and The Sun; and on web sites such as Alternet.org, EnergyBulletin.net, TheOilDrum.com, ProjectCensored.com, and Counterpunch.com.

He has appeared in many film and television documentaries, including Leonardo DiCaprio's 11th Hour, and is a recipient of the M. King Hubbert Award for Excellence in Energy Education.

More information about Richard can be found on his website: richardheinberg.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

146 of 146 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Holidays for World Renewal, November 14, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Celebrate the Solstice: Honoring the Earth's Seasonal Rhythms through Festival and Ceremony (Paperback)

A couple of years ago, I put out a winter holiday greeting on the Web. Its purpose: to explore the ancient origins of the winter holiday season and its deep cross-cultural roots, and to help me give greater meaning to my own celebration at this time of the year. Little did I know when I began candlegrove.com that someone had already "written the book" on this subject. Richard Heinberg has collected archeological evidence, myths and folklore from all over the globe and throughout human history. His stories and examples resolve into a beautiful and compelling picture. Cultures the world over -- from ancient China to the megalith builders 5,000 years ago in Ireland who predate the pyramids -- from the Maori to the Maya -- marked the solstices and equinoxes as tremendously important temporal and seasonal thresholds with deep spiritual and practical meaning. Today, our modern, urban lives are in so many ways insulated and disconnected from the turn of the seasons and their importance in the cosmic dance. Are the solstices and equinoxes still relevant? Heinberg argues that they can be, and not just for neopagans or those of one brand of faith or another. I cannot evaluate his research, but his writing drew me in. With few lapses into over-poeticizing, and only a small measure of new-age, environmental hectoring, he gives us simple ways to renew the solstices as life-affirming celebrations to help reconnect us with the earth.

56 of 57 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Mistitled, March 24, 2002

By 

Cynthia M. Caton "minion" (Ireland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Celebrate the Solstice: Honoring the Earth's Seasonal Rhythms through Festival and Ceremony (Paperback)

This is a scholary work mainly on how prehistoric cultures marked the solstice and equinox. The bulk of the book touches lightly on the celebrations throughout the world. It is interesting, if not a little dry. The remaining chapters suggest ways in which people can celebrate on their own.

This is a pagan-friendly book. I was disappointed, however, because I thought I was purchasing a book which focussed mainly on how to celebrate rather than a historical book. The title and cover were misleading to me. I think it should have been named "Ancient Solstice Celebrations" instead.

The book is well written and the information is obscure. I would recommend for historical background rather than celebration ideas.