“Those who came before us had the knowing and the doing beyond our ken.”

My wife and I visited Newgrange northwest of Dublin in Ireland in 2002, on our honeymoon. Our wedding in New York City was originally scheduled for September 23^rd the previous year, near the autumnal equinox, but events overtook that date. We did some last minute scrambling and moved the date to late October. Our planned honeymoon was a casualty that got pushed off a year.

I remember my amazement at this Neolithic passage tomb, a dome, stones stacked without mortar and covered with earth. The “curbstones” at the base weigh enough that there aren’t many cranes today that could lift them, and yet these stones came from far away, and are placed in a circle. The showstopper is the transom over the door, an 18”x 36” window through which a sunrise sunbeam shines at the Winter Solstice and lights the altar in the burial chamber.

Why’d they do that?

We were told that the altar would have contained the ashes of the years departed, and the sunlight would begin their passage to the next world.

How’d they do that?

We were told that it was “likely a task of more than one generation to do the observations and calculations and build the tombs. That’s right there are more than one. Knowth and Dowth nearby are similar construction Dowth is aligned to the Winter Solstice; Knowth is positioned toward the summer Solstice.

These Irish monuments aren’t the only ones to be built to highlight the shortest day.

• At the temple at Karnac in Luxor, Egypt, constructed around the same time, the Winter Solstice sun shines through the pillars at the center of the temple.
• At pueblos at Chaco Canyon in New Mexico and Hovenweep in Utah, the solstice sun projects daggers on spiral petroglyphs.
• The Cahokia Woodhenge, discovered in Illinois, was likely a calendar that began counting down the planting year with the exact point when the sun was furthest from the Earth.
• The altar of the Inca Temple of the Sun at Machu Pichu is illuminated at their Winter Solstice in June.
• While everyone reveres Stonehenge as a Summer Solstice monument, there are also Winter Solstice observatory alignments within the stones.

Today, we might be able to build something like these monuments. It would require the work of astronomers, architects, engineers, construction workers and lots of computing power and heavy equipment. These were built by what we call primitive peoples living in clans or tribes. Don’t you wonder what other knowledge and skill they had, which has been lost in modernity?

Archeologists often describe these sites as observatories, or calendars, or houses of ritual and worship. Weren’t they also a reflection of a life in touch with our planet and its star?

Solstice celebrations as they have evolved

Winter can be a bleak time. I guess even in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant they feel the short days and cooler temps, though I doubt that Arctic circle adjacent cultures would give them much sympathy. Some of the oldest extent Western Winter Solstice traditions come from that trade pathway and civilization birthplace that is the Middle East.

The Persian prophet Zoroaster lived around 600 BCE. He preached about a single God and a final battle between good and evil. His writings in the Gathas talk about the Winter Solstice as a time when the power of evil is at its fullest, and people should stay awake, and gather in groups to sing and pray. This tradition survives in Iran as Yalda night where families and friends stay up all night, light candles, eat fruits, read the poetry of Hafez, pray and sing  songs of praise.

Dongzhi is a 2500 year old Chinese Winter Solstice tradition celebrated in China, Korea, and Japan. It represents the peak of Yin and the birth of Yang. Yin is the passive, retiring, feminine force and Yang is the active, repelling, masculine force. So the holiday is movement from quiet reflection to fiery action, and maintaining balance and harmony between day and night. It is celebrated in gatherings of family, paying respects to ancestors and eating warm foods.

Hanukkah (Chanukah) commemorates the restoration of the second Temple, when the Maccabees overcame their Greek and Syrian oppressors of the Seleucid Empire, who forbid them to observe the Sabath or read the Torah. The Temple light, the Menorah, could only be lit with oil specially prepared and sanctified by a priest. There was but one vial in the Temple and it would take eight days to prepare more. Miraculously, one day’s oil burned for eight days, when light returned to the Temple. Hanukkah is celebrated today with prayer and symbolically lighting one candle in a menorah for each of eight nights.

Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ, the Son of God who redeemed man from the sins of the world through the sacrifice of his death on the Cross. December 25^th was chosen as the date to celebrate by the Romans during Emperor Constantine’s reign, to replace the pagan celebrations of Saturnalia and Sol Invictus, which celebrated the rebirth or the sun. There were various similar traditions among Celtic, Germanic, and Scandinavian pagan cultures that revered this time of year. Christmas has adopted many traditions from other cultures, candles and lighted evergreens, but the central theme is rebirth.

Kwanzaa (December 26 to January 1) is the newest celebration around the time of the Winter Soltice.  Dr. Maulana Kerenga created the celebration in the United States in 1966 after the Watts riots in Los Angeles. He wished to venerate African traditions in opposition to the dominant culture’s primary religions. It is celebrated today with the lighting of seven candles, one for each of seven principles: Umoja – unity, Kujichagulia -self-determination, Ujima – collective work and responsibility, Ujamaa – Cooperative economics, Nia – purpose, Kuumba- Creativity, Imani – Faith.

Finding Meaning in Solstice

Not every religion celebrates the Winter Solstice. Islam believes the winter is a time of quiet reflection and prayer, and it’s festival of lights (Eid al Fatir) is in the spring after Ramadan. Dewali, the Hindu festival of lights is an autumnal event.

For those faiths that have a Winter Solstice holiday, it is a celebration of moving from the dark to the light, often celebrated in close groups with candles, and firelight, It is a time of reflection and rebirth. It is a time of endings and new beginnings.

This year may we all say goodbye to greed, hatred, and conflict and be born again, beginning a new life of acceptance, kindness and peace. Beginning today, each day is lighter, may our compassion and love grow our hearts bigger and brighter just a little each day. We might find it becomes a habit.

Happy Solstice to all and to all a good night.