Seasonal Celebrations: Portals and Passages

Eight times a year, Genesis Farm celebrates seasonal passages that mark Earth's yearly orbit around the sun. Portals and Passages celebrations fall on the spring and autumn equinoxes, the winter and summer solstices, and on the cross-quarters, or half-way points, between each of these events. (The dates for these seasonal celebrations can be found in our Events listing.) They include opening and closing rituals, as well as a long weekend during which the public is invited to perform their own ceremony.  where the land is open to the public for honoring the ???

The seasonal changes have shaped humanity's understanding, its imagination, and its deepest realms of creativity over our short history on the planet. The seasons continuously call us to contemplate the meaning and purpose of our lives.

The Earth has made this orbit nearly five billion times. Throughout the two and a half million years that humans have been present to these passages, cultures have observed them with awe, fear, gratitude and praise. Many of humankind's varied religious ceremonies speak to the strong human impulse to honor the sun's cycles.

By creating rituals that are symbolic portals, we open to the deep unity of each individual to a community, and the unity of all with the Earth and the Universe, the Holy source from which all comes. It is one way to pray for the wisdom, guidance, courage and love demanded in these times.