Solstice — a world celebration, both ancient and modern.
For many people around the world, this is the week of the winter solstice; a time of ‘Expectation’ and promise. Expectation has always been an integral aspect of all Solstice rites and traditions. In the deepest dark of the winter skies, humankind has always looked for and celebrated the coming of the light.
“Solstice” is derived from two Latin words: “sol” meaning sun, and “sistere,” to cause to stand still. The lowest solar elevation occurs about December 21st. This night, when the hours of dark are the longest, is called the winter solstice, the first day of winter.
In pre-historic times, winter was a very tenuous time for the northern Aboriginal people. Tribes survived on stored food and whatever animals they could find. As the life-giving sun sank lower in the sky, people feared that eventually it would disappear and condemn them to perpetual darkness and cold. These Aboriginal people, observed a slight elevation of the sun’s path within a few days after the solstice, a date later designated by modern calendars as December 25th. They aligned their celebrations of birth, death and rebirth with the winter solstice; and would rejoice in the sun’s rising and strengthening again, promising the return of warmth and a new growing season.
Probably the oldest seasonal festival known to humankind, the Winter Solstice, together with the Summer Solstice, is a universal festival, celebrated by many peoples long before known, recorded history.
In the time of the Egyptian pharaohs, the god-man and savior Osiris, died and was entombed on the night of the winter solstice. “At midnight, the priests emerged from an inner shrine crying ‘The Virgin has brought forth! The light is waxing” and showing the image of a baby to the worshipers.”
In Greece, the birthplace of western philosophical thought, the winter solstice ritual was called Lenaea. In classical times, a man representing the harvest god Dionysos, ritually dies and is reborn as a baby.
Early Celtic calendars measured the months according to the moon’s revolution of the earth and the Celtic year was divided into two halves, the dark and the light. Samhain was the beginning of the dark half, with its counterpart, Beltane beginning the light half. In the Druidic tradition, the Celtic winter solstice festival is called “Alban Arthan, the Light of Winter”. At the darkest point of the year the Druids celebrated the rebirth of the golden solstice; when the Sun, once again, returns warmth, light and life to the Earth.
In pagan Scandinavia the winter solstice festival was the Juul (Yule). Great Yule logs were burned, and people drank mead around the bonfires listening to minstrel-poets singing ancient legends. It was believed that the Yule log had the magical effect of helping the sun to shine more brightly.
The pagan, Roman Empire celebrated ‘Saturnalia’, a week long, feast for Saturn during the Winter Solstice. Saturnalia was a festival of the home. It was a time for merry-making. Friends visited one another, bringing good-luck gifts of fruit, cakes, candles, dolls, jewelry, and incense. Houses and Temples were decorated with boughs of laurel and evergreen trees symbolizing life’s continuity. Lamps were kept burning to ward off the spirits of darkness.
By the third century BC, Roman Emperor Aurelian, in a bid to unify the many religions and spiritual mysteries practiced within the Empire, blended a number of Pagan solstice rites celebrating of the nativity of such god-men and saviors as: Appolo, Attis, Baal, Dionysus, Helios, Hercules, Horus, Mithra, Osiris, Perseus, and Theseus into a single festival, called the “Birthday of the Unconquered Sun”. This unified feast was celebrated on the 4th day after the solstice, a date that equates to the modern calendar day of December 25th.
By the fourth century, Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire. The early Christian church expediently chose to celebrate many of its holy days within the ancient, and universally acknowledged solstice schedule. Even though the actual date had been lost to antiquity, Christian leaders felt the need to recognize the birthday of Yeshua of Nazareth, later known as Jesus Christ. Gospel scholars indicated that Yeshua was probably born in the fall, but December 25th was chosen because the date was already recognized throughout the Roman Empire as the birthday of various Pagan gods. Over these many centuries, the western Christian Church, universally accepted the traditional, solstice-related date of December 25th. One of the principle reasons for the rapid propagation of Christianity throughout Europe during the first millennium was the pragmatic willingness of the Christian Church to incorporate the rituals, beliefs and customs of other religions. This assimilation of existing spiritual practice, was the path that brought many of ancient traditions of the Druids, Wiccans and Pagans forward to our modern celebrations of the winter holiday season.
Many of our most-loved “Christmas Holiday” traditions, symbols and practices are of Druid and Pagan origin. Holly, ivy, mistletoe, the Yule log, gift giving, and decorated evergreen trees, even Father Christmas has mystical Celtic roots. His “elves” are the modernization of the ‘Nature folk’ of the old religion, and his magical reindeer are associated with the ‘Horned God’, a Pagan deity.
Saturnalia and the Solstis celebratory traditions were adapted to Christmas observances as well. Our Christmas tradition of feasting and fellowship are derived from Roman Saturnalian and Bacchanalian festivals. The modern celebration of Christmas has faced fiercer foes than western capitalism and singing chipmunks. It served as a lightening rod for the European, Protestant Reformation. The English Parliament abolished Christmas in 1647. Offended by its hedonistic nature, the Puritans in Massachusetts unsuccessfully tried to ban Christmas entirely during the 17th century. Based on its relationship to the ancient winter solstice, some contemporary Western Christian faith groups do not celebrate Christmas.
At the time of the Winter Solstice, pre-columbian Incas celebrated the festival of Inti-Raymi, in which the god of the Sun, Wiracocha, is honored. It was one of the many festivals the 16th-century Roman Catholic, conquistadores banned as part of the forced conversions of the Inca people to Christianity. In the last century, the Quecia Indians in Cusco, Peru have revived the Inti-Raymi festival.
In Brazil, archeologists found an ancient assembly of 127 granite blocks arranged equidistantly, with one of the stones was positioned to mark the position of the sun during the winter solstice. This prehistoric astronomical observatory was probably used in religious rituals.
North American native peoples observe both the summer and winter solstices. Although rituals differed from tribe to tribe, the winter solstice rites were dedicated to the sun, the coming new year and the rebirth of fields in the spring. The Hopi ceremony is called “Soyal and lasts 20-days. It includes the making of prayer sticks, purification rituals, retreats and prayers and concludes with a hunt, a blessing and a feast.
Tribes, native to the Northeast, built countless stone structures to track the solstices and equinoxes. In Vermont, archeologists discovered a twenty-acre, natural amphitheater. From a stone enclosure at the center of the hollow, one can see a number of vertical rocks and natural features in the horizon, which form the edge of the bowl. During the solstices and equinoxes, the sun can be observed rising and setting through notches or peaks in the ridge that surrounded this holy place.
The feast day of Shab-e Yaldaa is part of Iran’s Persian heritage. Originating in Zoroastrianism, the state religion, which preceded Islam, Shab-e Yaldaa celebrates the rebirth of the sun. As in other winter solstice celebrations, bonfires are lit outside, and people gather in their homes to tell stories and read poetry and share food.
Another solstice-related festival is the celebration of Hanukkah, also known to modern Jews as the Festival of Lights. Hanukkah commemorates the Maccabee’s recapture of Jerusalem, the restoration their temple and the lighting of the temple’s lamp. Even though the Maccabee warriors had only enough consecrated oil to last for 24-hours, the flame burned steadily for eight days. Today, Jews commemorate that miracle, by lighting one candle for each of the eight days the lamp flame burned faithfully. Hanukkah is a family celebration marked by special foods games and gifts.
Not directly tied to the winter solstice, but celebrated in early December, Buddhists celebrate ‘Bodhi Day’, also known as ‘Rohatsu’. It recalls the day in 596 BCE, when the Buddha achieved enlightenment. This day is generally regarded as the birthday of Buddhism, and signifies the point in time when the Buddha achieved enlightenment and escaped the endless cycle of birth, death and rebirth through reincarnation. A theme observed in other religions in December.
Monotheistic religions, like Judaism, Christianity and Islam, tend to view time as linear — the creation, the present, and the future when the world, as we know it, will end. Aboriginal spirituality perceives time as circular and repetitive, with monthly lunar and yearly solar cycles. The spiritual wellbeing and physical sustenance of the community depend on the continuity of nature’s cycles. All of the solstice celebration and rituals were designed to turn the sacred wheel and ensure the balance of light and dark, or life and death. Humankind, in all our many guises, beliefs and traditions, understands at a cellular level, the absolute miracle of “Expectation — “to anticipate, look forward to, await, and hope.”
The 2007 Winter Solstice
For the first time, the 2007 Winter Solstice illumination at Newgrange in Ireland will be available live on the Internet, weather conditions permitting. See http://www.newgrange.com/ The passage and chamber at Newgrange will be illuminated by the rising sun on 2007-DEC-21 between 08:58 and 09:15 GMT
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