This is a linkpost for https://tigrennatenn.neocities.org/simple_solstice/

People have been celebrating Secular Solstice for over a decade now, in our small community. Many different programs and versions have been collected at Secular Solstice Resources (and elsewhere). The amount of material can be overwhelming. Many Solstice programs are based around original material being written or updated, speeches that are specific to the speaker, and other things that make it challenging to reuse.

The goal for this program is to be an easy-to-follow, easy-to-reuse Solstice program for a group celebrating Solstice for the first time, or the first of a few times, possibly a small group, possibly without many resources.

Simply print one copy of the program per participant (or fewer and have people share), and follow the directions.

If you aren't familiar with the songs, you will need one or a few people to go through them first and help lead. You could host a listen-through party first to get your group familiar with the songs used. NOTE: I haven't made a specific playlist for this yet, due to time constraints, but reference materials for all the songs can be found at Secular Solstice Resources' Songs page. (Please express interest in the comments if you'd like this and I will try to make time!)

>>Just give me the printout already!<<

Additional editorial notes about this Solstice:

I have focused on using the most commonly-reused songs and speeches from Solstices past. See appendix.
I have focused on using material that is less specific to a particular time and place than others, though near-everything in Solstice relies at minimum on factual claims that may need to be updated from time to time. It is a value of our community to update in the face of evidence, so if this gets too wrong or out of date and I don't fix it, please don't use material you regard as wrong!
Where possible within other constraints, I have tried to use songs that are easier to sing along to and/or produce.
I wrote an original Introduction to Solstice speech that should hopefully be generic enough to cover most cases-- as always with Solstice, please do edit (or ask me to make changes) if you see inaccuracies, and feel free to customize if you would like.

Appendix: Most common Solstice songs and speeches

I wrote a script to extract these from the programs on Secular Solstice Resources. Here are the results, as of January 2025:

Most used songs:

Song	Uses
Brighter_Than_Today	38
Uplift	33
Bitter_Wind_Blown	22
Hymn_to_the_Breaking_Strain	21
Time_Wrote_the_Rocks	19
Here_Comes_the_Sun	17
Five_Thousand_Years	17
When_I_Die	16
Always_Look_on_the_Bright_Side	16
X_Days_of_X_Risk	15
Bitter_Wind_March	14
Chasing_Patterns	14
Do_You_Realize	13
Bold_Orion	12
Still_Alive	12
Endless_Light	11
Here_and_Now	10
The_Sun_Is_A_Mass_Of_Incandescent_Gas	10
Blowin_in_the_Wind	8
Somebody_Will	8
Lean_on_Me	8
Voicing_of_Fear	8

Most used speeches:

Speech	Uses
Minute_of_Silence	17
Beyond_the_Reach	13
Road_to_Wisdom	10
500_Million_But_Not_A_Single_One_More	10
Pale_Blue_Dot	10
Gift_We_Give_Tommorow	8
Call_and_Response_Defiance_Abridged	8
We_Are_Here	7
This_Is_a_Dawn	6
Litany_of_Tarski	6
No_Royal_Road	5
Origin_of_Stories_Morning_Edition	4
You_Cant_Save_Them_All	3
Communal_Meal	3
Toasts_Boasts_and_Oaths	3
Story_of_Winter	3
The_Goddess_of_Everything_Else_Abridged	3
Origin_of_Stories_Twilight_Edition	3
Call_and_Response_Defiance	3
Only_Human	3

[-]Raemon1mo70

I'll leave a Generic Smolstice I made here too I guess. (This was specifically designed to be done outside, and has some random opinionated aesthetic takes and wasn't trying to feature the most popular highlights)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/15D8SP-XslTv7OhwZPoxkbigscqMtC0B_jeo1-2lULFE/edit?tab=t.0

The Ritual Arc

Prelude: Bold Orion

I. The Past

Meditation on the Past
Circle Singing
Bring the Light
Bitter Wind Blown
Move the World
Chasing Patterns
Stardust

II. The Present

Meditation on the Present
When I Die
Time Wrote the Rocks
Do You Realize
Story: Into the Darkness
Blowing in the Wind
Hymn to the Breaking Strain
You Are Not Alone

III. The Darkness

Meditation on the Winter
Silent Reflection
The Gathering Hymn
The Darkness and the Light

IV. The Future

Brighter Than Today
Endless Light
What a Wonderful World
Story: This is a Dawn
Here Comes the Sun
Meditation on the Future
Five Thousand Years

Epitaph: The Road to Wisdom

[-]Raemon1mo50

Thanks for doing this!

I'm not sure if there'd be enough data for it to be interesting, but, a thought I had looking over the "most popular songs" is you might want to somehow count "across cities" as opposed to "multiple times within a city" (NYC I think has the most stable repertoir and I'm guessing some songs are showing up at the top due to consistency, which, maybe is correct, but I'd at least be interested in the other numbers)

[-]maia1mo30

Yes, I think it's true that NYC is overrepresented -- plus there are significant gaps in the Bay programs posted so those are underrepresented. I've at least biased it towards songs that I personally like more which is probably more towards Bay-ish and away from NYC-ish.

LESSWRONG
is fundraising!
LW