tl;dr: Solstice Season is coming. It's a good time to visit old friends, and reflect on the big questions together.
- Berkeley winter solstice will be held Dec 6th. Lighthaven will be open the month of December for visitors who want to stay longer or get day-passes to hang out.
- New York winter solstice will be held Dec 20th, with a megameetup that weekend at the HI NYC Hostel.
- Other solstice celebrations around the world are encouraged to post their events on LessWrong, which will be highlighted on a community map soon. If you think you're running something "megameetup" level, let me know and I'll add it here.
If you want to run a small solstice for your friends or a bigger one for your local community, you can find resources here to help you get started.
For the folk in the northern hemisphere, the nights are getting long. The sky is getting dark. Bold Orion is in the night sky[1]. For folk in the southern hemisphere, the opposite of all that is happening – soon the world's light will be at it's zenith.
Most rationalist winter solstice rituals are relatively serious, basically a church service if church was about not-all-believing-the-same things but sharing a commitment to truthseeking and excitement about human progress. Lesswrong-ish winter solstice ceremonies are about confronting dark, immense truths that are difficult to face alone. They also usually involves singing together.
Summer Solstices tend to be much more lighthearted and fun, celebrating the here-and-now. There, uh, are rather a lot more lesswrong folk in the northern hemisphere than the southern, so, this post is mostly oriented around the winter frame. But, either way, you are encouraged to post your Solstice celebrations/rituals/events to LessWrong.
In New York and Berkeley in particular, there'll be large megameetups where hundreds+ people will show up, with unconferences and afterparties surrounding the winter solstice ceremony. (If there are any other large scale megameetup-y things happening elsewhere in the world, let me know)
If you're only going to come to one rationalist event this year, a Solstice megameetup is a pretty good choice.
New York
New York was the founding home of the rationalist winter solstice, and is still one of the largest. Each year they host a ceremony with some of the best solstice music, and a megameetup where around a hundred people gather at a hotel for an weekend festival/unconference/sleepover.
The megameetup starts on Friday, Dec 19th and runs till Monday the 22nd.
The solstice ceremony itself is Saturday evening (exact start time tbd).
You can get tickets to the solstice, the megameetup, or a hostel room with 8 bunkbeds on the megameetup site.
Berkeley
Berkeley is probably the largest concentration of rationalists living in one city (I haven't checked which is denser, Berkeley or SF).
Berkeley's Solstice ceremony will be December 6th. Doors open at 7pm, with the event starting (hopefully!) at 7:30. You can get tickets here. It'll take place at Freight and Salvage theater. We sell tickets
The megameetup and afterparty will be hosted at Lighthaven. If you want to attend the megameetup on Friday or Saturday afternoon, tickets are $50. (This includes access to the December Lighthaven schedule, for any other spontaneous events people might schedule).
Lighthaven will also be open all month for people visiting Berkeley, or who just want to cowork or hang out. You can rent rooms. (Later you'll be able to rent day-passes, but it's not set up yet). If you book longer stays you can get a bulk discount. We'll be open through the end of December.
Everything's listed on the Lighthaven Solstice Season page.
Smolstice
Remember, even if you're attending a big megameetup, you can still hold a small solstice ritual for your friends and family, the night of the 21st. The thing that originally inspired me to create the solstice ritual wasn't Midnight Mass, it was my family's small Christmas eve ceremony, where 20+ people could cram around a dinner table and then settle into the living room around a fireplace for hours of singing.
Since then, some of us have also experimented with "outdoor firepit Solstice", where the setting sun itself guides you from light into darkness. (Sometimes, during the Moment of Darkness, people take off their coat for a couple minutes to feel the winter chill more fully).
"Living room solstice" and "outdoor campfire solstice" are both really nice vibes, and by hosting a small thing of your own, you can tailor it for exactly your own preferences, wand individual people maybe bringing specific things that are meaningful to them.
Have a happy Solstice Season!
You're encouraged to post information about your local solstice event here.
- ^
And while he isn't actually older than continents, he is pretty old and he has long heralded the human experience of winter
- ^
(There, uh, happen to be way more northern hemisphere rationalists than southern, so, this post is framed a bit more about the former)