It is the Winter Solstice. In the cold we huddle around the fire, joined in our communities. At the dark time of year, when the days are short, we celebrate the light. During this time I often imagine ancient peoples in their shelters, with a roof smoke hole above the fire, bringing evergreen boughs inside, so the green reminds them that spring will come again. I even wrote a song about this fantasy called Deep Winter’s Night.
I was encouraged in this fantasy first by the Megalithic monument Stonehenge oriented towards the Summer Solstice. I felt that these people in 2500 BCE were quite attuned to the interaction between the light of the heavens, and the earth on which we still walk. I was amazed at how, what I thought of as a primitive people could orient such a large monument to the sun on one day per year.
When I saw the older Megalithic Passage tomb at Newgrange north of Dublin Ireland, built in 3200 BCE I was further gobsmacked. There is a transom window over the entrance and on the Winter Solstice at sunrise a beam of sunlight comes through the transom and illuminates the altar on which cremated remains were placed. The sunbeam, archeologists speculate, was believed to enable the passage of the spirit from one plane to another.
This fit with my fantasy of the hope of light at the darkest time of the year.
Then I had a “flat forehead moment,” so-called because I have repeatedly struck my forehead with the heal of my hand over the years exclaiming, “Duh!” or “Doh” (like Homer Simson). What prompted this epiphany of blindingly obvious perspective dissonance?
In Australia, New Zeeland, South Africa, Peru and Antarctica it is the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year. So my annual fantasy is a completely Northern-Hemisphere-centric viewpoint.
Apologies to those who live south of the equator, who may say –“Wha?” And people who come from around the equator where the days are the same length year round, and in most places around the equator one will not be huddling around a fire and bringing conifers inside.
Moreover, this ancient Winter Solstice fantasy is probably a Euro-paleo-centric perspective representing a narrow slice of all the ancient ancestors on the planet. I have trouble imagining this behavior among Aleuts and Innuits at the Arctic circle or the Navaho, Kiowa, Osage, Chickasaw, Choctaw, or Calusa in what became the United States.
Duh!” Or I think I’m gonna go with “Doh,” because I feel as clueless as Homer.
Here is the story of the triggering of this realization.
As I started my annual rumination on our Winter Solstice and the many festivals of light at this our dark time of year, I observed that Hanukkah, the eight night Jewish celebration, starts on Christmas night this year. It moves dates on the Gregorian calendar as result of the six thousand year old lunar calendar used to fix dates of religious celebrations.
I wondered about lunar calendars. Did hunter gatherers use the phases of the moon to track the movements of animals and know which plants yielded edible food? I dunno. My parents would have sent me to the Encyclopedia Britannica in our living room. “Look in up.” And I still do, though on the Internet version. It turns out that lunar calendars are very old. Archeologists have found some evidence of lunar calendars in caves in Southern France that may be as old as 32,000 BCE.
In the third millennium BCE the lunisolar calendar emerged, lunar months and solar years. In addition to Hebrews, the Sumerians, Assyrians and ancient Egyptians had a lunisolar calendar.
“Ah,” I said. “the growth of agriculture?” The moon in her phases pulled upon the waters of the Mediterranean, the Tigris, Euphrates and Nile nourishing the plants that the Mother brought forth. Perhaps with the growth of astronomy in Egypt and Greece solar calendars came to the fore. The distant Sky Father, seeming larger than the Earth, was entrusted with man’s invention, Time.
Lunar calendars now are really lunisolar calendars because there is always an addition of a month every two to three years to maintain accuracy with the ubiquitous 1582 Pope Gregory XIII sponsored DayRunner. China, Mongolia, Korea, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Banks Islands, part of the nation of Vanuatu in Melanesia in the South Pacific, are all on a lunisolar calendar for cultural celebrations.
It is also true that many religions, including Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism schedule religious festivals according to lunisolar calendars
This brought me back to a puzzle I have always wrestled with. Christianity adopted the pagan Winter Solstice celebration, light at the dark time. It appeared that Judaism did too, Chanukah (traditional spelling). But Diwali, Hindu festival of lights is in the fall. And Islam celebrates light at Eid at the end of Ramadan in the spring.
Here comes the flat forehead moment.
In the home of these religions, what I thought of as the Winter Solstice, cold, snow, seemingly dead deciduous trees, sprinkled with some evergreens, short days, dark time of year, needing to see the light and be hopeful, wasn’t really like that.
“Doh!”
It is however more than a little interesting that these religions have their own festival of lights. So the timing matters less than my Northern Hemisphere, Euro-paleo-pagan genes would indicate.
There is a cycle of dark and light, of fear and hope, of individual independence, joining hands in community and peace.
We may celebrate that cycle at different times of the year in different seasons, but we all celebrate. We all long for community to wrap us in love. We all hope and feel peace in our hearts.
So whether you celebrate at this time of year or not, whether there is a tree in your living room or a shrine, whether there is a fire or candle you gather at, reach for those you love and those you barely know, and share your hope for the light, and your love.
Peace be upon you, and all of us.
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