The concept of pain is sometimes used in a figurative sense, as when speaking of spiritual pain to describe a special psychic state caused by various external or internal factors and associated with distressing sensations.
During the winter solstice â which falls on December 21 or 22 in the Northern Hemisphere and June 20 or 21 in the Southern Hemisphere â the path that the sun travels in the sky reaches its lowest point. It is the shortest day of the year, and has been noted and celebrated by a wide variety of cultures around the world.
A snow-covered park in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, during winter. Winter is the coldest season of the year in polar and temperate climates, between autumn and spring. Winter is caused by the axis of the Earth in that hemisphere being oriented away from the Sun. Different cultures define different dates as the start of winter, and some use a definition based on weather. When it is winter in the Northern Hemisphere, it is summer in the Southern Hemisphere, and vice versa.