December 22, 2003

• Merrie Yule, Y’all!

  
  

  

  
  

  ‘Tis Yuletide, when the Sun is reborn and the year made new.  The Romans celebrated it as the Saturnalia (and took their sweet time about it, no single-day event nor long weekend for them), and Mesopotamian records of such celebrations predate Christianity by about four thousand years.

  
  

  Early Christians, the earliest followers of Joshua ben Joseph, apparently were not interested in his birthday.  By the time the celebration of Christ’s Mass began, nobody had the foggiest notion of his birthdate… either that or someone savvy about public relations decided it would be politic to ride the Saturnalian coattails.

  
  

  It is simple enough to tweak out of historical records the timing of that Roman census in Judea during which Mary had her inconveniently timed labor in the stable.  It was in the summer time, and a few years before that non-existent year zero from which Christians measure time. 

  
  

  One of my favorite channeled sources, The Urantia Book, says He was born at the cusp, when the Sun was moving from Leo to Virgo.  As an astrologer, I find that quite fitting.  From the Heliocentric perspective, that was when the Earth was moving into Pisces, and it was also the time when the Celestial North Pole, through precession of the equinoxes, was tilting from Aries into Pisces.  That event neatly initiated the two-thousand-year Piscean Age, which is now yielding to the Age of Aquarius.

  
  

  Being in on those very open “secrets” gives me a dual opportunity each year to celebrate the Christos.  I do it up in grand pagan public style with misteltoe and holly and special music along with the Christians at the winter solstice, and then in summer when His birthday comes around, I do it in quiet communion, alone.

  
  

  Living here in the far north gives me more reason than most people have to celebrate the return of the Sun.  From this day for the next six months, days get longer and lighter.  I like that.  As I was waiting this evening for Greyfox (AKA the Old Fart, my husband) to get home from the gun show, it occurred to me that now that snowy, dark days are here, he’s driving up and down the valley almost as often as I did last summer.  That suits me.  I don’t know how such things occur, but darkness and cold make miles seem longer.  I’m contented staying here keeping the fire going.  The highway calls to me only when it is clear and light.  Green is my color… not that white’s not all right, it just isn’t green, if you know what I mean.

  
  

  Welcome back, Sol.

  
  

  

  

  • 5:36 am
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