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Feature - Solstice

The Standing-still Sun and the Solstice Fairy

It’s Christmas again. It’s hard to miss the hysterical build-up – the decorations were out as soon as Halloween was in the candy-bag. Even so, it stretches belief that the year’s end is imminent. This is the sign that I am getting older, saying banal things like , Wow, this year has gone really fast. Is it December already ?

The girl in me who doesn’t like to be told what to do digs her heels in at Christmas. All the messages indicate a buying trend – a shopping frenzy, of gifts, and lights, and themed decorations, and foodstuffs. Larders spill over, credit cards get worked and trash cans will bulge on the 26 th with wrapping paper, leftovers from overmounded plates. More stuff. And this to celebrate the birth of an itinerant carpenter who went empty-handed into the world to take his message.

Somewhere, amidst the hectic calendars, focused shopping expeditions, juggling of family arrangements and stress-fairies, aren’t we all hoping for a bit more meaning? For some spiritual sustenance, even if this is not a religious holiday of significance for us?

"Well, what are you so miserable about?"

"Miserable? That’s harsh. I just think Christmas is a bit of a farce. People spending money they don’t have on items nobody needs, while homeless people are fighting for somewhere to shelter. Chopping down trees. Did you know at the Rockefeller Centre, they purposely chop down Norwegian spruce that are almost 100 feet tall each year for Christmas because it’s breathtaking for the shoppers? This year, the cities of Newport Beach, California and Miami, Florida are contesting each other over the tallest, with trees clocking in at close to 115 feet tall. I mean, imagine how breathtaking that tree was when it was alive, and in the forest? Anyway, who are you?"

"I’m the spirit of solstice."

"Oh. Like the Ghost of Christmas Past? Someone took a vote and I was nominated as the Scrooge of the decade?"

"No. Nothing like that. You wished me here."

"I did?"

"Yeah, in the third paragraph there – ‘ aren’t we all hoping for a bit more meaning?’ That’s what I’m here for, your crash course in the true meaning of Christmas. So let’s start with what you think Christmas means."

"Umm, okay… family. Food. Gift giving. A tree. Christmas lights. I guess if you want to look beneath those traditions, it starts with Jesus."

"Well, that’s where you’re wrong. Those traditions go back way before Jesus."

"Now, you’re piquing my interest."

"Well, it’s time to get connected to the season. It’s Winter Solstice. The solstice is at the heart of it all."

"I should have guessed that – you being the… solstice spirit?"

"Technically, the Spirit of the Standing Still Sun."

So I stop interrupting and surrender to the surreal visions of the solstice spirit and my tutorial on the meaning of the season.

"Let’s start with the solstice. Your generation, your whole century, you are so disconnected from the seasons. As soon as you worked electricity out, you forgot all about it. You figured you were so sophisticated to have a switch that turned lights on, but that’s not sophisticated. You know the standing stones at Stonehenge? The temples at Macchu Picchu? There are other ancient megaliths too – Newgrange in Ireland, Maeshowe on the Orkney Islands, sacred sites everywhere. Now, those are sophisticated. When the winter solstice arrives, all the stones and features line up and you can trace a line, a ray of light, through the heart of the structures."

"What exactly is the winter solstice?"

"Well, it’s December 21. It’s the shortest day of the year. The planet’s tilt means the northern hemisphere leans furthest from the sun in the winter solstice, so the sun’s arc is low in the sky."

"It’s not the shortest day where I’m from. It’s the middle of summer in Brisbane."

"Ah! That explains why you don’t know anything. Your Christmas traditions make no sense down under. It’s surreal to be putting up a tree and cooking a turkey and singing about snowmen in 30 degree heat."

"Well, it’s not quite as surreal as being visited by the solstice fairy, but I’m hardly in a position to argue."

"The winter solstice is the day that marks the turning point – from here, the light grows longer, stronger. The renewal of the world will begin. It’s a very spiritual concept – a time for the closing of chapters and the making of new growth and plans – a new path will begin in the spring, growing from what ends here."

"Well, Spirit, thanks for the crash-course. I’ll just bring forward my New Year’s Resolutions, and then my Christmas will be meangingful."

"I think you might be missing the significance. Winter solstice links many different religious holidays for the season – Diwali, the Hindu Festival of Lights, Ramadan for Muslims, Hannukah for Jews, Christmas for Christians. Whatever gods or history might be honoured across different cultures, there are similar themes working across them all that suggest our common origins as cave dwellers and sun worshippers."

"Makes you think that maybe "peace on earth" is something we can really aspire to."

"If we realize the common thread behind the traditions. Lights, feasting, an evergreen tree, tradition, family, gift-giving – these are all common themes with an ancient source. As is the date December 25."

"If it’s not about the birth of Jesus, what is it?"

"The Dies Natalis Invicti Solis . It’s the Birthday of the Unconquered Sun."

"Cute play on words."

"I always thought so. In Egypt and Syria, the celebration of the "newborn" sun during the winter solstice imitated a human birth. The sun was represented by a newborn infant who received homage from worshippers in the temple, who would light candles and fires to offer the sun strength.

"The Roman feast Saturnalia, feting the god of agriculture, also centred around December 25. The festivities lasted over a week – school was closed, the army rested and executions were held over."

"Everyone takes a holiday. That sounds familiar. The newer traditions just adopt and reinvent the older ones."

"You’re getting with the program. Friends visited one another with good luck gifts of fruit and cakes, candles, incense, dolls and jewelry. Houses and temples were decorated with evergreen branches to symbolize the continuity of life. And parades danced through the streets.

"December 25 was officially adopted as the Sun’s birthday by Emperor Aurelian in the third century. But the date was already being celebrated by Persian worshippers of the ancient sun-god Mithra, to honour the Mother of Heaven. It was thought that Aurelian specified the date of December 25 to combine the Mithran sun worship into the Roman feasting."

"So when the Christian church is looking to adopt a day for Jesus’ birthday, it would be natural for them to choose December 25."

"Precisely. And you’d be interested to note that the date of the winter solstice was also celebrated as the birthday of Herakles, Mithra and Krishna."

"Greece, Persia and India?"

"Well, hello! It’s about the sun. This god or that god, call them what you may. But sun awareness and worship is everywhere. Even Scandinavia. The winter solstice was the feast of Ullr."

"Hey, I know Ullr. He’s our patron saint here – the god of skiing."

"Yes. Well, he’s a Norse deity and he was probably more important than records suggest because there are a lot of places in Scandinavia named for him. At any rate, this is his time – the month preceding the winter solstice, or Yule. Yule or Juul, means the wheel, and refers to the wheel of the solar year, the cycle of the sun. Yule logs were burned as offerings to the sun’s might, and people gathered for mead drinking and poets sang ancient legends around bonfires which burned for 12 hours. Later the Yule Log became the Yule Tree, and instead of being burned, it was adorned with burning candles."

"So Ullr was a great partier? That makes him even more perfect as the god of skiing."

"Well, you have to appreciate that the shortest day of the year in Scandinavia is really short, so the parties had to be huge celebrations to gather the community and hold back the goblins and dark spirits and fear of cold and hunger that haunt the long nights."

"And the Scandi’s invented the Christmas tree?"

"Wrong again. Evergreen branches have been hung to keep evil spirits at bay and represent long life by the Romans, Persians, Greeks, Mesopotamians, and northern European cave dwellers."

"I guess if you were a hunter-gatherer, and a big part of your diet was foraged from trees and bushes, then the winter sparseness would be a big deal. So an evergreen would really hold out the promise that the spring would come around again."

"Yes. And then the other universal ingredient in winter festivals is fire. If you’re tuning in to that hunter-gatherer cave-dwelling ancestry, you’ll understand the importance of keeping the home fires burning. Of having captured something of the sun, while it has disappeared, to keep you warm. So, fire has always been the heart of the winter solstice festivals, to summon and strengthen the sun, and to burn away evil."

"Evil, like the hungry predators who thought a cave-man snack would be a tasty Christmas treat? So you stoke the fire at the mouth of the cave…"

"And by lighting up your housefronts and streets, you’re acting out an ancient defiance of the long winter nights. So too did many East Indians last month for Diwali, lighting lamps to celebrate the victory of good over evil, light over darkness, a time for settling accounts, paying off debts, starting afresh."

"So, it’s not all about a shopping frenzy."

"No. You’re not conjuring up the spirit of the season when you’re out shopping. In fact, there’s growing movements to ensure the gift-giving takes a back seat to injecting some personal meaning into the time."

"Yeah, yeah! I know about these! Adbusters’ Buy Nothing Day. And Bill McKibben’s Hundred Dollar Holiday. And the Mennonites’ Buy Nothing Christmas. But Christmas isn’t Christmas without presents…"

"It’s not about the gift, kid. It’s about giving. There’s a lot you can give and it doesn’t have to be gift-wrapped. Give your time. Offer to baby-sit for a friend. Volunteer at a soup kitchen, or become a big sister or a big brother. Give a party. Invite some buddies around for a game of Pictionary. Or a potluck dinner. Call your grandparents. Walk a dog for WAG. Drop off cans for the food bank. Give a compliment. Give someone your seat on the bus. Let people know that they’re precious to you, by telling them, or spending time with them. You don’t have to buy them. Got it?"

"I think I’m closer."

"Everything is meaningful if you’re mindful. Connected to the reason behind it. Well, I’ll be on my way."

And with that, I’m left talking to myself, tingling with a shot of the Christmas spirit. Whether the symbol of the season is a branch of evergreen, a candle burning, a string of lights outlining your house, an infant in a manger, it’s all about the wheel of life and the triumph of light over dark. And perhaps the secret hope of the season is not that Bush’s "good" triumphs over Saddam’s "evil", but that the darkness in me is overwhelmed by the light. That I can sit with the long raw night and stir up the compassion and bravery and loving kindness that all the gods we celebrate urge us to. And take that re-stoked fire into the world again.

Happy Winter Solstice!



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