Annual Winter Solstice Gathering — Penn Forest Natural Burial Park, Verona PA

The Annual Winter Solstice Gathering is an evening ceremony held at Penn Forest Natural Burial Park in Verona, Pennsylvania, just outside Pittsburgh. It is an open, community solstice observance for anyone who wants to mark the darkest time of the year in company, outdoors, with light as the focus. Spiritworks, the Pittsburgh organization that hosts ceremonies and gatherings of remembrance with Penn Forest, brings it together.

What to Expect

The gathering is an illumination ceremony, built around the idea that the winter solstice is the start of the solar year and a celebration of Light. It runs in the early evening, about two hours from five to seven o'clock, so the dark settles in while you are there. That timing is the point: you stand in the longest night and watch the light return, in a quiet place rather than a crowded hall.

Winter solstice has been honored in cultures around the world for thousands of years. In old Europe it was known as Yule, from the Norse word Jul, meaning wheel, an image of the year turning. The gathering draws on that long human habit of gathering at the turning point and lighting something against the dark.

Spiritworks and Penn Forest also host a summer solstice festival at the same grounds, with a remembrance ceremony, live music, a 40-foot labyrinth, meditation and yoga. The winter gathering is the quieter, candle-and-lantern counterpart to that festival, centered on light rather than activity.

The Setting

Penn Forest is a natural burial park, a green cemetery where the land is kept as open meadow and woodland rather than rows of stone. That makes it a fitting place for a solstice ceremony. The grounds are peaceful and walkable, and a ceremony about light and the turning year sits naturally among the trees and open ground. The park is in Verona, in the Pittsburgh area of western Pennsylvania.

Because the gathering takes place outdoors in December, expect cold and dark.

Before You Go

- The gathering is a ceremony, not a class, so no experience or preparation is needed.
- Dress for winter weather and for standing or walking outside in the evening.
- Spiritworks welcomes people of any faith or none, including those who have lost someone and are looking for a gentle place to be with that.
- Check the event page for the current schedule and any registration details before you travel.