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Solstice Holding the Lightby Mary DeDanan
December 21,
Sitting here at my altar, solstice morning, waiting for the moment of turning, I am utterly aware of and thankful for the flames gracefully burning before me. This last month I have a new understanding of what fire, and the gradual return of longer, warmer days, must have meant to my ancestors, stretched out many millennia behind me. For here in my newly built, not-quite-completed yurt, during my first winter, I have no heat. A long story, but I ran out of money months ago, and it's been very slow earning new cash. So while I'm planning and dreaming of the wood-burning stove to come, I'm bundling up in four, five, or six layers, and keeping a hot water bottle on my hands and feet. I've almost gotten used to an average indoor temperature of 40 to 50 degrees (almost). Blessedly, I do have a propane cooking stove, so I can make hot food. I'm completely off the power grid out here in the boonies, with my own solar and wind power. But the solar panels don't put out much in gray winter, and the wind turbine has been disappointing so far -- I think we may have put it in the wrong place. And now my back-up generator is broken, and I'm trying to find the money to take it into the shop. This all means that I must be utterly frugal with the "other fire," my electricity. One lamp on at night. Minimal computer and stereo, if any. So lots of candles and olive oil lamps. I'm a candle snob, since learning that the common, normal candle is a petroleum product (paraffin wax) and made much worse if its artificially scented. We're talking neurotoxins in one's air intake. So I'm experimenting with homemade olive oil lamps: six little floater gizmos holding the wicks in six votive glasses, filled and refilled with clear green oil. The little lamps are the workhorses, used every night, and often much of the day. The candles in my house are of vegie wax or beeswax -- expensive -- thus saved for special occasions. This is a special occasion. I sit before my blazing altar, admiring this fire festival in miniature, swaddled in layers of silk and wool, a hot water bottle on my feet, a cup of hot cocoa in hand, blessed by the dancing flames. A milky sun is high now, shining in the skylight dome. I splurge, turn on the stereo, and play a favorite CD. As Solstice celebrations go, it may not be much. But I'm deeply grateful and content. I've been an active, inquiring Pagan for over nine years, and was aware of the solstices for many years before that, wanting to celebrate them without knowing how. But the holiday I grew up with was, of course, Christmas, both Christian and commercial. After years of reading and reviving and reworking and inventing, I'm amazed still at how much Christmas owes to its Pagan roots. Early Christian patriarchs purposefully created a religion by recycling old myths created by the very heathens they aimed to convert. (My sainted mother, very Catholic, took umbrage at the very idea that her beloved Christian stories were not literal truth. My apologies to her and any other believers, but this is traceable, historical fact.)
"After they have kept all-night vigil with songs and music, chanting to their idol, when the vigil is over, at cockcrow, they descend with lights into an underground crypt [womb of the Goddess], and carry up a wooden image lying naked on a litter, with the seal of a cross made in gold on its forehead [the equal-armed solar cross], and on either hand two similar seals, and on either knee two others, all five seals being similarly made in gold. And they carry round the image itself, circumambulating seven times the innermost temple, to the accompaniment of pipes, tabors, and hymns, and with merry-making they carry it down again underground. And if they are asked the meaning of this mystery, they answer: 'Today at this hour the Maiden that is, the Virgin gave birth to the Aeon [Time].' " One can't help but notice that the early Church swiped the plotline. Then there's the matter of what day. Nothing in the New Testament specifies the date of Jesus' birth. But keep in mind that the Christian cult spread first throughout the Roman Empire (real estate that reached from Britain to Mesopotamia), and the new Christianity was thus firmly tied to Roman tradition. In the year 312 CE, Emperor Constantine himself converted (surely the PR coup of all time), and in 375 CE, flush with new influence, the Church fathers fiddled with the details of their myths. The birth of Christ was deliberately assigned to December 25. With that one date, the patriarchs were aiming for a triple target: the winter solstice (the date was miscalculated), the Roman festival of Saturnalia (a week-long holiday of mischief, merry-making, feasting, and gift-giving -- the Romans knew how to throw a party), and the proclaimed birthday, December 25, of the Roman solar hero-god Mithras (his mom was the Persian goddess Atagartis and his birth witnessed by shepherds). Mithras, known as Solis Invictus, the Unconquered Sun, was by this time a big to-do amongst average Romans, chief rival to Christianity. With this rarely mentioned context, it's clear that the Church pulled off a great marketing job: they repackaged and put their own spin on what everyone was already doing. Note that the Church allowed the merrymaking aspects to continue, or at least tolerated them. Centuries later, Puritans of England, certain that anything fun must be evil, tried to turn Christmas into a solemn affair, a fast day instead of a feast day, and actually had partial success from 1644 to 1656 (at which point, of course, they lost the whole political shebang, and no wonder). Retreating to the American wilderness, Puritans tried to ban Christmas cheer throughout the seventeenth century, with even less success. Moving on to other myths, consider that somewhat different icon of Christmas, Santa Claus. I'm grateful that I don't have a TV, so I don't have to deal with all those fake, hard-sell Santas in my face. But when I consider Santa's origins, I confess that I soften to the old fart. He is, in fact, an elf, an inhabitant of the faery realm, with hints of shamanic ancestry. Consider that he dwells in the far north, the region of magic starry darkness, and at the North Pole, the world axis. He's dressed in red, and all old European lore agrees that red and green are the colors of the Otherworld. He flies through the air in standard shamanic fashion, in the company of reindeer, sacred beasts from way back -- think cave paintings. At some point in the misty past, people may have had in mind the very common image of the Horned God of old Europe, who wore antlers himself. Santa travels the world all in one night, so is a time-shifter in common with all true faery folk. He uses chimneys to moves up and down between the worlds. His sack supplies goodies for all, much like the mythological Celtic cauldrons which supply unlimited abundance, or the Finnish sampo, a magical mill that can endlessly grind out luscious food and shining coins. He can eat astonishing amounts of milk and cookies, recalling the Irish Dagda, "the good god," a pre-Celtic agricultural deity (and one of the earliest keepers of the cauldron of plenty) who liked to stuff himself, resulting in a comically huge belly. Santa's gifts are not only practical and fun, but are at times reminiscent of the healing, prophesy, and wisdom that tribal shamans mediated for their people. Keep all that in mind next time Santa invites you to sit in his lap. There are other faery tradition associated with Christmas and winter solstice, particularly from the Scandinavian lands, and countries like Scotland with strong Norse influence. In tale after uncanny tale, winter solstice is when the veil between worlds is thinnest and magic occurs (in contrast, Celtic tradition holds that those times are Halloween and May Day). The season's long darkness may be the key -- for instance, the Shetland Island faery folk, the Trows, are only about in the dark. If daylight catches them, they must stay out until the next evening. They dress in gray, and old songs still mention such figures as "the Gray Man." Of course, if your faeries are most active at winter, what better time to propitiate them? My Finnish friend Kari tells me of the standard Christmas feast when he was a small boy. He could smell the delicious preparations all day, and couldn't wait to eat. But when it was all finally laid on the table, beautiful and hot, the dining door was firmly shut and no one allowed in for some time -- "forever!" he reports. By tradition, still alive in the 1950s, the Tontuu had first dibs on the feast. Tontuu are helpful spirits of house and farm, fond of red stockings and green or gray jackets. If pleased with their share of the Christmas feast, they'll help out all year long. Kari's parents strictly observed the rules, until they came to America. The Christmas tree has equally venerable roots (if you'll pardon the pun). The World Tree is found in many cultures, first recorded in Sumeria five thousand years ago as the Hullupu tree (which evolved into the Tree of Knowledge of the garden of Eden). Both the Greeks and the Celts held groves and ancient trees as sacred, with their own spirits. In old Egypt, the date palm and sycamore were trees of the Goddess. Scandinavians had Yggdrasil, the mighty ash tree that held the three worlds. There are stories worldwide of holy trees, myths of humans and deities who became trees, tales of why some trees are evergreen and some deciduous. For centuries, out in the orchards of Celtic countries, farmers and their families walked out to their dormant fruit trees in midwinter with an offering of fine alcoholic cider and sprinkled it over the bark, with spells and prayers to the tree spirit, that the trees might be plentiful next summer. But it is the evergreens -- the pine and fir, the holly and mistletoe -- that carry the mystery of life. From very early times in Europe, evergreens were brought into homes at midwinter, bringing with them their sympathetic magic of life that continues over the cold, dark season. Earliest Yule trees were decorated with fruit and biscuits, and colorful scraps of fabric (which surely meant more in the days when every piece of fabric was made from scratch). Branches of holly hung on the walls, recalling the story of the Holly King and the Oak King: at the solstices, the two battle for rulership of the year. Every summer solstice, when the tide turns and the sun begins its slow decline, the Holly King triumphs, ruling over the growing dark. And at midwinter, when the sun is reborn and the light begins to return, the Oak King begins his reign, and the holly is cut and hung as sign of his submission.
Another goddess of the season, no doubt related to the Caillech, is Mother Holle (her name comes from the sacred holly) of Germany. Mother Holle creates the snow storms every time she shakes out her feather quilt, and stories told of her relate how she rewards good children, and punishes rotten brats (sound familiar?). My favorite evergreen, mistletoe, is a plant that is neither this nor that-- it grows not from soil, nor from air, it's not a shrub, not a tree -- it is, in other words, "other," outside the boundaries. An ancient charm for fertility and ingredient of love potions, it was once worn on a ribbon around the neck by women who wanted to conceive. It's lost none of its magic, obviously.
And these are only the examples I know of, and can relate from the top of my head. There are many more, in many cultures. Modern Pagans have a saying, what is remembered, lives. So I sit before my few but lively flames, on a Winter Solstice day, remembering, writing, drinking tea, trying to stay warm. It's raining again. The Moment, 11:21 a.m, comes and goes. And so the cosmic cycle turns. Modern calendars call this the first day of winter, but who are they kidding? For uncounted centuries before, this is the midwinter (in the old reckoning, winter begins at Halloween and doesn't really give up until May Day). I admit that I like the old system of time better than the one I was born to, and that is all around me, clicking and ticking and worrying away. The old timekeeping makes more sense to me, particularly when living out in a remote area, where I see the daily passages of sun and moon and stars, where I garden for food and wildcraft for mushrooms, herbs, and berries, and judiciously thin the woods for fuel (trusting that my future wood-burning stove will appear). So I'm content with the long nights, and I wait for the moments when the wet skies clear to reveal the awesome starry veils of the Universe. The rain falling now renews this land, brings back the salmon, and eventually will return as underground spring water that keeps us alive in the dry hot summer. It's midwinter. I have watched the skies, and have faith that the sun will grow strong again. And in my candles and my laughter and my remembrances, I am a part of it all. |
