As I walked my dog across a field, at high noon, during the first week of December, I was struck by just how low the sun was in the sky. It gave off a brilliant, but cold light and I felt saddened by the feeble quality of its power and the length of my shadow. Of course the earth does its annual rotation of the sun and we tilt away from its full strength during our winter months. This phenomenon has occurred every year of my life, so I should be used to it by now. It just seems a little heavier this year. This sense of darkness is probably exacerbated by the sorry state of our economy, all of the terrorism and wars raging in the world, and the general angst of the populous in this time of great political change, but the search for light in the dark of winter has been going on for eons.
At the winter solstice the sun reverses its course and the days begin, once again to lengthen. In trying to find a simple way to explain this, I turned to Wikipedia, which informs us, ‘On winter solstice, the sun ceases to decline in the sky and the length of daylight reaches its minimum for three days, during which the sun does not move on the horizon. After such a time, the sun begins its ascent into the northern sky and days grow longer. Thus the interpretation by many cultures of a sun reborn and a return to light.’
Most cultures have historically had some kind of recognition of the renascent sun around December 21, the winter solstice. The time between December and April, when the land in the Northern Hemisphere sleeps, claimed many lives due to cold and famine. People created solstice festivals and rituals to ward off evil spirits, often trying to appease them with animal or human sacrifices. They’d slaughter livestock before they, or the livestock for that matter, starved to death, and they’d ferment wine and mead. They’d gather and feast to lift their own spirits, building great fires to help strengthen the sun. They sang, danced and told stories until the sun rose the next morning. These activities held great physiological as well as psychological benefits − laughter, exercise and the creation of positive ions by burning wood, being a few.
We, of course, recognize Christmas and Hanukkah and maybe even Kwanzaa, but the list of festivals, celebrations and customs surrounding this time of year when the sun stands still, goes on. Persian Zoroastrians celebrate the victory of the sun over the darkness with Deygan. DongZhi, celebrated at winter solstice by Chinese and other East Asians, is based on the concept of yin and yang, light and dark and balance in the universe. They share feasts of tangyuan, rice balls, signifying prosperity and family unity. The Saami, the indigenous people of Scandinavia, eagerly await the return of Beiwe the sun goddess of sanity and fertility, who rides across the sky in a vehicle constructed of reindeer bones to announce the return of the greenery on which the reindeer feed. I, personally, like the idea of a sun-goddess with the power to return me to sanity during a long winter.
Light plays a huge role in many winter traditions. The menorah, with eight lights, illuminated during Hanukkah, reminds Jews of the miracle of the oil that burned for eight days when there had been only enough for one day’s sustenance. During St. Lucia’s Day, the Swedish festival of lights, towheaded children are crowned with wreaths holding white candles, a symbol of the seasons’ cyclical nature and of the persistence of life in the midst of winter. Christians light candles in Advent wreaths in anticipation of the birth of Jesus Christ, who in the Christian faith, is seen as the Light of the World. There is also the Yule log, of Germanic Pagan origins, which burned for days during the solstice fire festival and, since 1966, has burned on TV screens across America. The Yule log can now be found on the World Wide Web at theyulelog.com.
I always dread the end of daylight savings time, but love seeing the sparkling white lights go up in old town Truckee during Thanksgiving weekend. They are tiny beacons of hope, a sign of the light to come. So, to all of you who struggled with tangled strings of Christmas lights and climbed tall ladders to affix them to your gutters, to all of you who went to the TDPUD to exchange your old incandescent lights for energy-efficient LED strands, and to all of you with those ridiculous inflatable glowing snow globes on your front lawns, thank you for carrying the message of hope and new life into the dark of winter.
Please remember, the greatest gift you can give anyone this holiday season is your light.
Peace on Earth. Goodwill to all.
~ kira@moonshineink.com
