Origins: Winter Solstice

 

The Winter Solstice is considered the most celebrated annual event in the history of human cultures around the world.  Ancient structures survive in many of today's countries that seem designed to funnel the solstice sunlight, from the Great Pyramid and the Karnak temples in Egypt to Stonehenge in England, but also in Turkey, Germany, France, Mexico, Wales, India, Zimbabwe, Peru, Easter Island, Cambodia, Japan, Canada, India, Bulgaria, Sweden, Russia, Brazil and the USA, among others.

Most of the traditions still found in the grab bag of modern Christmas observances come from Winter Solstice rituals, including the evergreen tree, holly, candles, the Yule log (and Yuletide itself) as well as stories of the birth of a divine son, usually in a cave or other dark place. Even the red and white outfit of Santa Claus mimics the red and white ritual garments of various cultures, including far northern cultures (think North Pole) for the Solstice. 

Many surviving indigenous cultures still celebrate the Winter Solstice.  In many indigenous and ancient observances the emphasis was on the light and dark, with attention not only to it being the shortest day of the year but the longest night--and so the stars were important.  It was at the same time the beginning of winter, which--for one thing--was the traditional time of story-telling.  In some tribes, the most important stories, such as the creation, could be told only in the winter season. The stars in the winter night sky could also be important in these stories.

For many, the Winter Solstice was the rebirth of light, and so of birth.  But for others the emphasis was more earthy, and not on birth, but on a kind of pregnancy.  For example, in rituals of the Caney Indians of Central America that I participated in a few times in the past, the central figure was a Mother Earth symbol, becoming pregnant and beginning the gestation of the new life that would appear in the spring, especially the plants growing up from the earth. As the days grow slowly longer, the life that appears in the spring grows slowly, unseen, in the dark earth.  It is a celebration of that promise.

I think of all this when the celebrations this time of year seem increasingly distant from the natural world which first inspired them.  That includes many of the remaining religious expressions, which are largely elements of institutions that, deliberately and not, have distanced themselves from these ties to natural cycles, the mysteries of the planet's life.

But mostly we see this in secular observances. Of course, gifts are always symbols of the heartfelt intent of the giver, regardless of what they are. But when we consider gifts we buy, the term "materialism" is often bandied about.  But it's not precisely materialism.  Commercialism maybe--the commodification of everything, and the emphasis on products and constructions that are largely abstractions, symbols of something--if nothing else, of successful advertising and momentary fashion. The real material, the real physical, is of the Earth.  

The material, the realities of our own planet becomes ever more distant each year, except as imagery manipulated by technologies. What we experience is becoming mostly what we see on those tiny phone screens.

As for the stars in our skies, who can see more than a few, if any at all? Smothered by electric lights, blocked by buildings, the night sky that was mightily present to our ancestors has just about disappeared.  And when I searched for photos of evergreens against a starry sky, most of what Google showed me were very enhanced, and many were already generated by A.I.  (I can't vouch for how altered the image above may be, but it purports to be an actual photo taken by Ryan Hutton in Wisconsin on the Winter Solstice.)

In the end nature won't be denied.  Deep cold, wind, rain, snow in unusual proportions and ferocity, that visit us with increasing frequency as partially the effects of climate distortion, will make themselves felt, if not known.  Stay safe, and remember the original: the Winter Solstice.

Dark Age Now

The significant holidays in many existing traditions that occur around the time of the winter solstice suggest the enduring importance of this solar event within the living year.  At the center of customs or rituals in most traditions for these particular observances, including those that preceded today's major ones, is some form of light--light in the time of increased darkness.

Light also for warmth in the cold time.  One Indigenous tradition--and probably others, if not all--see winter as a time for the Earth's sleep but also of its pregnancy, the light in the body that will emerge as the new life of spring.
In those older traditions in parts of the world where winter is forbidding, when little grows to be harvested, and hunting and fishing slow or stop, the solstice began a season of people being together around the fire and listening to stories--stories of a people, of its history, of the origins of animals and how things got to be as they are.  Stories that provide the backbone of the living culture.

Though there are cultural values and aspirations embedded in, for instance, Christmas stories as well as religious texts read at this time, they exist more strongly in the institutions of our large scale complex culture, and in shared knowledge--including the standards for judging what is known.

A Dark Age in our culture is a time when such knowledge is forgotten and such institutions slip into chaos.  Late last year I suggested that signs pointed to the likelihood that we are entering such a time, and this past year has only added evidence of that.

I've called the incumbent president by a couple of names, still accurate.  Lately I've settled on "the anti-president," to reflect the complete extent to which he is relentlessly destroying the presidency, destroying the federal government and our sense of being one nation.  He does the opposite of what a president should do; he is the opposite of what a president should be, and even more, he is the opposite force, like anti-matter to matter: the anti-president.  This ongoing process of erasure is the preliminary to the self-reinforcing Dark Age.

The two most important elements are: replacing knowledge with ignorance, and flexible order with alarming chaos.

Knowledge it seems does not alone protect us.  What's being done is known, or at least knowable.  The anti-president's lies are doggedly counted and described every time he opens his mouth, but it doesn't seem to matter.  He keeps lying, about everything (including easily ascertained facts, and what's in his own proposals, etc)  and his White House backs him up.  Each time he lies, the truth dies, including the functional concept of truth.

 We can even identify other strategies that have been defined in popular fiction, like Orwell's Newspeak, which was at least as much the eradication of words as the addition of new mandatory ones.  Early on we've seen the erasure of climate change information from government websites, including the forbidding of the very words "climate change."  It has since disappeared from national security strategy.  Now there's a report of other banned words: the CDC has instructed staff to avoid seven words, including diversity, vulnerable, evidence-based and science-based.

Due in part to the anti-president, and in part to the impact of a certain social movement, right now all of our institutions are close to chaos, with decreasing resilience, and especially with fewer voices that can summon any kind of national understanding, consciousness or dialogue.  There is a leadership vacuum, including in opposing the anti-president and his supporting infrastructure.

But this year was just the preliminary, the softening up.  The possibility of real crisis increases in the coming year, and likely for years after that.  We may well face an authoritarian crisis by this time next year.  Everything is lining up for one.  Nobody knows how events will play out, but the elements are assembling, and we're vulnerable.

Yes, that's one of the forbidden words.  In fact, you can pretty much track where things are going on the right by what they want to forbid, and what say about the left.  They are very good at mirror accusations: being guilty of what they accuse others, or signaling their goals by accusations.  Right now the buzzword on the right is "coup."  It's often the justification for an authoritarian move--an anti-Republic to save the Republic.

Diversity is another forbidden word, for the institutions--including the rule of law and its principles-- that regulate and therefore keep alive a society with a diversity of identities and ideas, are under primary threat in any kind of authoritarian regime or culture.  Apparently rational, authoritarianism is most often driven by basic if not base emotions, from avarice to rage, that determine what may seem to be rational justifiable judgments.  It's pretty clear that such emotions are increasingly taking over.  The question is whether we survive these storms.

Certain kinds of absolute allegiances that are forms of identity can be set in opposition to others, which also sets up the chaos that can lead to an authoritarian "solution."  As we lose knowledge, allegiances, beliefs that we can hold in common, and as we lose faith in the fairness of institutions (particularly when they do become more unfair, more beholden to ideology or favoritism) we invite the chaos that is the pretext.  Then under pressure and in panic we face the dangers of devolving further into smaller group allegiances.

We haven't lost it all yet.  The national response from the top to this year's climate disasters has been grossly inadequate, but on the level of community--as in this southern California fire--there is still the unquestioned impulse to help.

Yet this all is unraveling at a time when life as we know it on our planet is in mortal peril from the climate crisis, and we're all but ignoring it, and certainly failing to do what we should be doing with the required urgency, attention and sense of purpose.  Some people talk of the next step in human evolution. Chances are slipping by that we will ever get to a next step. So far the prevalent evidence is that humanity is flunking evolution altogether.

At this time of year, people still gather to renew bonds, share stories and hope to provide a sense of light to the young.  As the new calendar year gets closer they may consider how they can represent the light and bring it to their times.

 These holidays in contemporary America are normally fraught with the resurrection of old conflicts, dashed if unreal expectations, push buttoned reminders of past hurt, and traditions of our culture that are conflicting to a point well beyond irony.  This year we have the added anxieties of deep turmoil in our country that is spiraling out of control, apparently headed to a Dark Age.  We huddle one more time around the light, hoping we're with the people who will still be with us in that different darkness.  

The Light Awakens

I once had the privilege of participating in an authentic winter Solstice ceremony of a central American Indian tribe.  Like most such ceremonies (at least these days), parts of it were improvised to deal with circumstances.  But the spirit was there, and we sang a song that had been sung on the Solstice for untold generations.

The Solstice is still celebrated in the Yalda festival in Iran, honoring Mithra, angel of light, and in China's Dōngzhì festival, marking the time when winter's darkness begins to give way to light. Hindu devotees worship the sun god on Makar Sankranti. Many Christmas traditions have their roots in Solstice celebrations, like the Scandinavian Juul--or Yule--in honor of the sun's return, or the Druid tradition of using mistletoe in their rites.  Like almost all Christian holidays, its appearance at the general time of ancient--even primordial--moments of awe and recogniton of the mysteries of existence, is not even close to coincidental.

It is perhaps the most paradoxical moment to celebrate.  We see it as the official first day of winter, promising months of dark and dreary skies, cold and inconvenient onslaughts of water vapor in its various forms.  Yet as the shortest day of the year, it marks the lengthening of days to come.  The ceremony in which I participated likened winter to the Earth's pregnancy, of unseen growth in the guise of slumber.

Meanwhile here on the North Coast, we're experiencing a rainy December.  We've beat the average even before yesterday's substantial rain and today's heavy showers, all before the week--between Christmas and New Years--that in the past often brought some of the heaviest rains of the winter (accompanied by a nice long power failure.)  Rivers are near flood stage, some creeks have flooded.

In itself this doesn't mean a lot--even in the drought years we've had one month each winter with decent rain, and several really dry ones.  But this winter we were expecting rain--just not so early.  El Nino, they say, hasn't kicked in yet here.

A week or so ago, FEMA saw seen the strength of the oncoming El Nino, and was counseling California to get prepared.

The problems that have already hit Washington (including Seattle) and Oregon (including Portland) from strong pre-El Nino storms may well be in our future: high tides and flooding, river and stream flooding, landslides.

The drought has made flooding (less porous soil) and landslides (forest fires) a bigger problem.  In the last big El Nino here, several small towns were virtually wiped out by a combination of landslides and flooding, which environmental activists blamed largely on the aggressive logging of hillsides and blocking of streams by the notorious Maxam, the last but huge gasp of the predatory timber industry here.

That 1997-8 El Nino caused significant damage in 40 counties of California, and resulted in 17 deaths.  Humboldt officials are telling people to be prepared.  They are working on direct wireless notification of imminent flooding for people who might be affected.  Downed trees and power lines are likely to happen with more than normal frequency.

Heavy rains were unusual since I'v been here until recent years, when rain was less frequent but more violent.  The exceptions were the late winters of the 96-98 El Nino period.  So far the rains have at times been steady, with what might be called downpours.  But not like that....yet.

So the immediate future is likely not filled with light.  Yet that is what is celebrated today--the return of light.  Even though the word "solstice" refers to the sun "standing still."  It celebrates something else as well, I think: the human predilection for the future.

Shhhh--The Biggest News Story in History

News from the NASA Rover on Mars has been pretty perky lately.  For instance, that surface radiation isn't as bad as feared for humans--it's about the same as in low Earth orbit.

But today NPR has a story about a story that can't yet be told.  It's about data that suggests a discovery by the Curiosity rover--"a big" one--but that has to be further evaluated before an official announcement is made.

It's pretty clear what that story might be: life on Mars.  Probably not alive now, but evidence of it in the past.  Or at least the organic compounds.

Other news, of Curiosity moving to a new location, tends to cast some doubt on how strongly NASA feels the data is.  Still.

It would be the biggest news story in human history, unless we're contacted by intelligent extraterrestrials before then.  Life has existed somewhere else.  In the broadest sense, but a very profound one, we are not alone. 

It may take several weeks to test this data.  Which means that an announcement, if it comes, might be made very close to the winter solstice, and all the holidays that celebrate birth, life emerging from winter, life emerging from darkness.

Happy Solstice

The winter solstice is the shortest day and the longest night of the year, marking the beginning of winter. One of the ancient traditions responding to this long cold night is a fire using the oak Yule log. Ancient and indigenous cultures also celebrate the day as the beginning of the earth's rebirth, for the days now begin to get longer. I attended a Native American ceremony once in which it was explained as the earth's period of pregnancy. Many of the ancient rituals of this day became part of Christmas and other winter holiday celebrations.