KATE BRADBURY

“I feel I am part bird at this point at the year's end: I'm ready for spring”

- Kate

THE WINTER SOLSTICE HAS A magic for me that other pagan festivals don't quite hit.

It's the one I actively celebrate rather than simply nod to, as I do the equinoxes, the summer solstice and the spring markers of Imbolc and Beltane.

I wonder if it’s the darkness and the long slog of winter, the seemingly endless lack of life, and the cold (will it be cold?). Then the solstice comes and the days finally start lengthening again. Earth is turning on its axis and the sun will return. Phew.

This shift in the seasons is not immediately apparent, but it’s significant: it’s always only a few days before I notice the birds pick up their songs - robins sing throughout winter, but there’s an energy, a stubbornness, that comes after the solstice. Here, in Brighton, the great tits start singing around this time, too, and they are also pairing up and establishing breeding territories — even looking for nest-holes despite not needing them for several weeks.