| Blogs > sparkleflit > My Blog |
|
A LONG SOLSTICE RANT This very long, but exquisite rant is written by my old friend Dale, who Ive known since high school.....and later we both worked at the Georgia Straight........He subsequently wrote a regular column for the Vancouver Sun until his recent retirement........ 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗦𝗢𝗡 𝗙𝗢𝗥 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗦𝗘𝗔𝗦𝗢𝗡 … (my annual Yuletide rant). The days and weeks on either side of the Winter Solstice are chock full of different folks celebrating “the season” of rebirth and hope. It’s Merry Christmas to you, Joyous Solstice to me, Happy Hanukah, and Happy Kwanzaa to others. I take no offence when you wish me a Merry Christmas, and I hope you take none when I wish you a Joyous Solstice. And how could either of us take offense when someone wishes us “Happy Holidays”? These days are holy to us all. We have believed a shitload of ridiculous things over the years, some dangerous and some merely bizarre. We have believed that if a woman is thrown into a millpond and drowns it proves she is innocent of witchcraft. We have believed that everything can be possessed for a price, even other people. We have believed that the Emperor of Japan is the direct descendant of the goddess of the Sun and god of the Moon unless of course, we have believed that the sun is a god and the moon a goddess, which makes it difficult for us to understand Japanese mythology. We have believed that gods and goddesses live in the trunks of trees and that the big boss god could be cajoled or appeased with the bleeding hearts of young virgins or bleating goats. We have believed that a prophet once travelled between two cities on a miniature flying with the face of a woman and the tail of a peacock, that the creative intelligence of the cosmos spoke to a desert nomad from a burning shrub, and that sacred underwear protects believers from spiritual contamination and speeding bullets. We have believed that sprinkling water on infants if done correctly, can keep the baby from an eternity of suffering should he or she die prematurely. Oh, the things we have believed! And in believing each of those things, we have found something to make this time of year special to our particular school of magical thinking. To create a unified (and marketable) cultural celebration we have modified and absorbed religious and cultural observances to fit an essentially pagan calendar. Hanukah is a minor Jewish celebration of resistance and has nothing to do with the Solstice. Kwanzaa references south-eastern African harvest celebrations, and Christmas, as far as being the birth of Christ, is misplaced by several months, probably to co-opt the Roman Saturnalia. During this season of extreme expressions of both belief and disbelief, we are often chided to "remember the reason for the season" … usually by the proponents of a particular belief. You know who you are, you chiders! But the reason for the season has neither more nor less to do with the birth of a baby boy to a refugee couple in a middle-eastern village more than 2,000 years ago than it has to do with any of the above beliefs or the religions that produced them. The reason for the season, in the northern hemisphere where we live, is that at a calculable time on a knowable date (this year at (in the current case, about 1:50 a.m. today) the Sun will cease to slip away to the south, stand still for an immeasurable moment in the time-space continuum, and then begin its solar return. The ground will thaw, the snows retreat, all will be moist and warm and green again. Crops will grow, and we will eat. And that, my friends, is the reason for the season. We celebrate this season because the Sun is about to reverse its southward travels and begin its return to its home in our summer skies. We may celebrate with different stories, but we are all celebrating the same thing … the renewal and continuation of life. The true oldest profession is in fabricating stories to explain all this. What does it mean? What does it symbolize? How can we know that it will happen? How can we guarantee that it will? My own family had a tradition, a couple thousand years ago, of lighting bonfires in the dead of winter. We did so because we had been told, by some very wise old guys, that to do so would bring back the sun. Some members of my family were among the old wise guys (who included more old wise gals than historical accounts would have you believe) and they were revered for having the prophetic power to know all this. Or maybe they were just old enough to remember that this had happened before. Many times. And so we lit our bonfires from Samhain to Beltane and, as promised, the sun returned. And if these wiseacres could know all this for sure, what else might they know that could be useful and comforting, and what would they want in the way of a reward for this wonderful knowledge? A little extra roast fowl around the campfire, or a slightly more comfortable hut to spend the winter? Done. And so the priestcraft was born. We weren’t the only ones to have noticed this recurring celestial phenomenon. Soyal is the winter solstice celebration of the Hopi of northern Arizona when they welcome the kachinas, protective spirits from the mountains. The Persian festival Yalda is a celebration of the winter solstice in Iran that marks the last day of the Persian month of Azar and is traditionally the birthday of the sun god Mithra, who predates Christ by some 1,500 years. Appropriation much? And speaking of appropriation, a patriarchal appropriation by the Church is revealed by the concept of “Father Christmas", which was borrowed (to be kind about it) from the indigenous shamanic cultures of Siberia and the Nordic countries of Northern Norway, Finland (Lapland), and the Arctic Circle. Long before Santa and his flying steeds, it was the female reindeer who drew the sleigh of the sun goddess at the Winter Solstice. It was when the pagan traditions of winter were “Christianized” that “Father Christmas” was born. It was never “Father Christmas” who brought gifts and the return of light at the Winter Solstice—it was “Mother Christmas,” the ancient Deer Mother of old. It was she who once flew through winter’s longest darkest night with the life-giving light of the sun in her horns. And from the British Isles, Scandinavia, Russia, Siberia, across the land bridge of the Bering Strait, she was a revered spiritual figure associated with fertility, motherhood, regeneration and the rebirth of the sun (the theme of winter solstice). In East Asian communities the Dongzhi Festival has roots in Taoism and the principle of Yin and Yang. In following the various dictates of wise guys and gals of all cultures and traditions we have bound ourselves in Gordian knots of creeds, theologies, and fairytales that great numbers of us still don’t see as problematic. We still give the professional prophets and soothsayers an honored place at the table, and a little something extra off the roast. And these days maybe a private jet. And their own special funny hats. But the return of the sun doesn’t mean that the emperor of Japan is a god, or that Abraham’s voice in the desert wasn’t a mushroom hallucination, or that the hidden Imam is only a heartbeat away. It just means that things will grow green again and we will eat and that we will continue to do so as long as the earth circles the sun, and we survive as a species. So wish me “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Hanukkah” or “Joyous Kwanzaa” and I will either respond in kind or enjoin you to “Have a good Solstice.” But no matter what your own wise guys (or gals) tell you, please remember the real reason for the season, according to this wise guy. We shall eat. |
|||
|
| ||
|
Both the male and female Reindeer grow antlers, but the males shed theirs in the Fall and only the females retain them through the Winter.....That means that the reindeer pulling Santa's sleigh every Christmas have all been female........Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet and Cupid, Dunder and Blixem.......All females........
| ||
|
Yuppers~~~ A well written rant and soooo very true. 
| ||
|
A very interesting read indeed. Wishing you and yours a very Merry Christmas. 
| ||
|
HOW TRUE. WE CELEBRATE THE SOLSTICE BECAUSE THE DAYS WILL GET LONGER, THEY EARTH WILL REGENERATE. THE RETURN OF LIGHT, OF WARMTH AND SO ON. A FEAST OF HOPE SO TO SPEAK.
| ||
|
Dale hasn't convinced me of anything except that he has written a very long rant in an attempt to separate himself from Christmas ..... and he should have called it 'Dale's reason for the season'. I'd say to Dale .... horticulture is horticulture and Christmas is Christmas ... two completely different things ..... apples and oranges.
| ||
|
I have my own beliefs Sparkle, they are quite simple, and I intend to hold on to them until I die. I love the time after Christmas and my snowdrops are beginning to show themselves. My visitors to the garden are a robin a blackbird and a gorgeous willy wagtail to stays for a long time. We have doves and crows too. I wish you a very happy new year.
| ||
|
Dale hasn't convinced me of anything except that he has written a very long rant in an attempt to separate himself from Christmas ..... and he should have called it 'Dale's reason for the season'. I'd say to Dale .... horticulture is horticulture and Christmas is Christmas ... two completely different things ..... apples and oranges.
|
×
×