Blood Moon on Solstice Night

In 1638, on a cold winter night in December, the darkest and longest night of the year, a full moon rose overhead. It cast its light out over the land and bathed everything in a wash of red.

Last night, the same full moon, eclipsed into a dark red hue, hung in the black sky of winter solstice.

Now that I got that out of my writer's system....
Yes, it's true. Last night, December 21 2010, the full moon came into a complete lunar eclipse on the night of Winter Solstice. It took 372 years for the earth, moon, and sun to line up and coincide with the passage of time to allow for this. It's only the second time that this has happened in the common era (according to wikipedia).

I spent quite a long time lying in bed, wondering if I should go out and see the moon, or if I should, at the very least, pull up my blinds. Then I freaked out. Why? Call me superstitious, but a total lunar eclipse on the darkest night of the year just didn't sit too well with me. There's a reason that some people refer to last night as "blood moon on solstice night."
Basically, three major things happened: there was a full moon, it was Winter Solstice, and there was a total lunar eclipse. From a spiritual/Wiccan perspective...
Full Moon -- the time when spiritual and magickal energy are at their height. If there was ever a time to pray or do rituals, particularly for protection, it's during full moon.
Winter Solstice -- the darkest and longest night of the year -- signifies the of the Sun. Except the birthing part doesn't happen until the next day, when daylight hours are a fraction longer. During Solstice (Yule), the world is in a standstill of symbolic darkness, lit only by the light of the Moon -- the Goddess.
Lunar Eclipse -- I never know what to make of these, since some cultures (ex: Chinese) view such an event as an omen. Wicca sees it as another time when magickal powers heighten, as the three main celestial bodies around us align perfectly. It also shows the passage of all the moon phases in one night, and therefore the cycle of the goddess -- maiden, mother, crone -- which can lend to ritual work.

The issue is: this has only happened once before. There is no tradition or guideline regarding this whole affair. Quite a few people out there are using the combination of these three events for special work, and see the balance of power and forces, unions and dynamics. Others, like yours truly, are wary of this double delumination -- that of the sun and the moon -- and speculate occult activity.

Either way, I decided upon two things: I'm honestly very happy that such a rare event has occured in my lifetime, even though I was too scared to see it. I also recognize, and felt, the force of power and energy last night, no matter what it meant. Some things in nature are truly beyond our understanding, so rather than try to answer everything, we should probably just sit back and let ourselves feel the majesty and perpetual wonder of this world we live in.