My experimental kitchen turned out another masterpiece last night.  It would have been perfect (in my far from humble opinion) if I hadn’t forgotten the dash of salt that would have banished any merest hint of blandness from the custard.

I confess that I never met a carbohydrate I didn’t like.  I especially appreciate carbs when they come in a gooey and/or sweet form, with a bit of crunch for contrast.  I spent many years becoming a proficient baker.  The pinnacle of that pursuit came in the 1980s, when my croissants won the Grand Champion purple rosette at the Alaska State Fair.

There was then a large serving of poignant irony in my discovery, a couple of decades later, that wheat was a causative agent of much of the illness that had been impairing my comfort and function for most of my life.  It didn’t take me long to figure out that while there are many alternative flours to be used in baking, there is no real substitute for wheat in fine pastry.

Finally abandoning the attempt to duplicate a tender, flaky pie crust, I worked up a quick and easy alternative that provides an acceptable grainy crunch with much less work than classic pastry.  Perhaps its most splendid redeeming feature is that it can be made with flours ground from beans and rice.  I derive great ironic humorous joy from pouring milky custard goodness into a shell of protein-rich soul food.

My basic pie crust recipe has remained stable for several years, varying only in the particular flours used, and the kind of vegetable oil:

These are stirred together with a fork in the pan in which the pie is to be baked.  Then I pour over the top of the flour mixture an emulsion whipped up with that same fork:

Stir these together with the fork until all flour is moistened.  The grainy/oily mixture can then be distributed and pressed onto the sides and bottom of the pan with the fork, compacted and smoothed with the back of a spoon.

My basic custard recipe starts with 3 eggs, slightly beaten, then combined with 2 cups of milk and a small amount of salt.  Sometimes I use no sweetener, if my other additions are sweet enough.  If I’m adding something tart, I add some honey, about 1/4 cup or less.  To taste buds accustomed to (perverted by) a commonly sweet diet, this would not be very sweet, but it is sweet enough for me.

Several years ago, after having been free of refined carbs for a nice healthy while, I made the mistake of trying a new sweetener, sucralose (Splenda). At first it was so cloyingly sweet that half a packet was more than enough for a sweet cup of tea.  Just as toying with a new drug often precipitates a rapid slide back into regular use of one’s drug of choice, before long I was tearing open the packets and dumping the powder straight onto my tongue.

Not long after that, I was back on sugar, corn syrup, and, worst of all for my health, wheat.  The natural sugars in the fruit I eat, and honey I use in baking, does not have that effect on me.  Them, I can use in moderation.  Since last February, when an attack of pancreatitis laid me low and showed me the error of my ways, I have somewhat reduced my neuro-muscular disability, and substantially improved the asthma that had been severely limiting my physical activity.

I also lost about 100 pounds in the first six months, all while eating as much as I wanted of some delicious foods, including a varied succession of experimental nutritious pies.  Last night’s success combined chopped dried apricots (a dozen or fifteen or so), half a cup of pepitas (raw pumpkin seeds), and 1/4 cup rolled oats, scattered in the crust before the custard was poured in, and baked for about 40 minutes at 325°F.

I cut my pies into narrow wedges, getting about ten or twelve from a 9″ pie.  They provide welcome variety in a diet that sometimes (when I see the variety of wheat-based delicacies eaten by others) seems restrictive.  Along with my sugarless gluten-free muffins, with variations of which I also experiment at each new batch, the pies keep me carbohydrated without pain, weight gain, allergic illness, or guilt.

I had a slice of apricot, pepita, oatmeal custard pie for breakfast, and I have leftover turkey that needs to be eaten for lunch, but I can, without harm, have another slice or two of pie today, and I shall.  You can bet on it.

Through all the years in which I had gainful employment, I was usually working when (and often where) other people were playing, partying, or taking their leisure.  From my teens into my thirties, I worked in food service and the entertainment industry, where a weekend off was out of the question.  Even managers seldom got a day off on a weekend, and I moved up to my first managerial position because the owner of a drive-in restaurant where I was cooking wanted someone to manage the place so that he could take weekends off.

When I moved into social service work, my first job was a 48-hour shift at a free clinic, from 8 AM Saturday to 8 AM Monday, standing in by myself for a weekday staff of six, troubleshooting and picking up the pieces after others’ weekend excesses.

After I became self-employed, doing psychic readings, the pattern continued and took on a few extra wrinkles.  I traveled to arts fairs and music festivals to set up my little booth and do my gig.  I was engaged for office parties and other events, to entertain the guests.  The timing of the bulk of my work then wasn’t the only way I was out of step with my culture.  My choice not to set a price on my work put me out of step with most of my peers, who charged set fees up front for their services, while I told my clients to pay me whatever they thought the information was worth, after they heard it.

That was in adulthood, but I was outpacing my cohort and/or my family, being left behind, or being excluded, even before I started school.  Kids didn’t seem to care whether my peculiarities represented a strength, such as my being extraordinarily flexible (“double-jointed) and able to read and do simple arithmetic before kindergarten; a weakness, such as my falling down a lot and frequent absences due to illness; or simply a difference, such as my being the only freckled redhead in my class. 

As I grew older, instead of my falling closer into step with my peers, other differences developed or were revealed.  We moved around a lot.  This gave me a broader range of experiences and greater geographical awareness, and made me ever the new kid in school.  I loved to read and found friendly librarians willing to allow me into the restricted stacks, so I knew more about many topics than others my age did.  My father, before his death when I was seven, was a machinist by trade and amateur mechanic and boat-builder.  He taught me basic skills that even my mother lacked.  None of my elementary school classmates – least of all the girls – could adjust a carburetor (most couldn’t spell it, either) or fix a vapor-locked fuel pump.  None of them had to, but I did, because Mama couldn’t afford to pay a mechanic.

I don’t know which of my oddities aroused the most hostility in my classmates.  The ones that got the most comments were my California speech patterns (living in Kansas, then in Texas), the long absences, and the times I became suddenly and violently ill in class and had to be taken to the nurse’s office to await evacuation.  The “sickie” and “pukey” nicknames, however, didn’t get any more mileage than the, “egghead,” or “brain” ones, and none of them had longer legs than Carrot Top or just plain, Red.

I went through a brief phase of trying to conform, motivated by loneliness and encouraged by my mother to “fit in.”  I might have been even more determined to fit in if she had not wanted me to.  I was rebelling against her even before my father died.  I was a risk taker, thrill seeker and adolescent rebel to degrees beyond any of my peers.  I was about ten when I concluded that I would never be accepted and could not change myself sufficiently to be acceptable.  I then turned my energies to pursuing what interested me.  Some of these things were intellectual pursuits, a varied collection of enthusiasms for a diverse set of subjects I, then and now, would study avidly.

Other enthusiasms were more athletic.  Other kids clipped playing cards to their bike forks to simulate motor sounds as they rode in packs from home to school or the park.  At nine to ten years of age, I set up bicycle jumps, did solitary stunts years before BMX or mountain bikes came on the market, and mangled my heavy Schwinn.  When I was eleven, I got a pogo stick for Christmas.  Before the day was out, I was bored with bouncing along the sidewalk.  I started going up and down stairs, then onto and down off a waist-high retaining wall.  A couple of years later, I got a hula hoop.  Despite days, weeks, months, YEARS of effort, I could never get the hang of it.  I won limbo contests, and fell down on the dance floor with a painful dislocation from doing the Twist.

Early on, both my parents called me, “contrary,” when I’d refuse a command or just do something my own way.  My father said that if I drowned, they’d have to search upstream for my body.  He said it with obvious pride, and I suppose that helped to console me for not fitting in.  Beyond some adolescent rebellion against my stupid, narrow-minded, fear-ridden mother (I characterize her thus in complete sincerity and with love.), I don’t recall ever having made a choice in a certain way just for the sake of being different.  I played down my differences for many years.  Then I grew a spine and began learning to accept myself as I am.

Now, if I’m in a crowded theater and happen to be the first one to get a joke, I might feel a bit of discomfort, but not embarrassment, when my lone voice rings out in guffaws.  And, I am somewhat comforted when the rest of the audience gets it and joins in the laughter.  There is a warm feeling that comes from the herd instinct after all.  I think I’d rather shop on two feet, but I appreciate the existence of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and find that the convenience of a shopping scooter matters more to me than the varied reactions of those who see me riding it.  It is not particularly distressing that I don’t have the financial ability to be as much of an early adopter as I’d like to be.

I’m gimping along to the beat of a different drum, even from the other members of a family that’s out-of-step with the norm.  My husband and I, who more or less adore each other, maintain separate households and are not comfortable in each other’s homes, because of such differences.  I like my hi-low-tech fringe lifestyle out here, and can’t abide city life.  Greyfox needs to be near to civilization.

This whole topic came to mind because my son’s overlong diurnal cycle now has him going to sleep earlier than I, so that I have to be up several times each night to stoke the fire.  He sleeps hard, I sleep light.  When he is awake, he tends the stove, but for the next week or so, he will be asleep for at least some of the same hours I’m sleeping, until he cycles back around to being wakeful at night and lets me off the fire watch. 

Occasionally, I can’t help noticing how far out of step I am with the culture I am nominally a part of, but I don’t care.  Once scary and painful, it is no longer a source of distress.  I’m comfortable in my skin, at ease in my mind, imperfect as I am, as long as I keep working toward being the best me I can be.

The
Three
Wise
Men
The myth du jour, the latest things to shake out of Santa Claus’s pockets, are Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthasar.

A few years ago, in mid-December Greyfox phoned me to read me some funny stuff from Dave Barry’s syndicated column.  The first words he read were something about the Bible telling us that the Three Wise Men… and there I interrupted him to say that the Bible doesn’t say anything about any three wise men.

Greyfox was undaunted.  He’s used to my interruptions and even if he weren’t, it can be devilishly hard to deter a man with NPD (narcissistic personality disorder) when he’s intent on anything.  He dismissed my cavil and insisted that the facts didn’t matter, then he went on and read me some funny stuff about men being lousy gift givers.  I think there could have been a touch of defensiveness there.  Gift giving has been a touchy subject between us for as long as we have been together, the Old Fart having gifted me with numerous wildly inappropriate and unwelcome items, including crayfish pickled in formaldehyde.

But I digress.  Here’s the straight skinny on Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, straight from snopes.com:

As Santa Claus and his reindeer are to the secular celebration of Christmas, so the three wise men and the creche are to the religious celebration. Even most of the non-religious (or non-Christian) among us recognize the symbolism of the nativity scene: it depicts the biblical account of three wise men from the east who rode atop camels and followed a star to Bethlehem, bearing gifts for the newborn Christ child who lay in a manger.

The truth is, the Bible contains virtually none of these details. They have all been added over the years from sources outside the Bible.

Mathew 2:1 tells us:

    Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem . . .

That’s it. Matthew doesn’t say how many wise men came from the east, doesn’t mention their names, and doesn’t provide any details about how they made their journey.

It has generally been assumed that the wise men (or magi) were three in number because Matthew 2:11 makes mention of three gifts: ” . . . they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense and myrrh.” The number of wise men is not specified in the Bible, however, and some Eastern religions have claimed up to twelve of them made the journey to Bethlehem. The names of the wise men, Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, do not come from the Bible and did not appear in Christian literature until over five hundred years after the birth of Jesus. Nothing in the Bible says the wise men rode camels (or any other animal); they may have made their journey from the east on foot for all we know. And despite the familiar lyrics of the Christmas carol “We Three Kings,” no biblical source depicts the three wise men as kings. (They were most likely learned men, perhaps astrologers.)

However many wise men there were, and however they got to Bethlehem, the Bible tells us they arrived just after the birth and found the baby Jesus in a manger, right?

 Not quite. Matthew 2:11 states:

    And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him . . .

The wise men came “into the house,” not the stable, and they saw a “young child,” not a newborn. This passage indicates that the wise men didn’t arrive until quite some time after Jesus’ birth. (According to Luke 2, it was shepherds, not wise men, who visited the infant Jesus in the manger.)

 To sum up: we are told by the Bible that wise men came from the east, that they followed a star to Bethlehem to find the Christ child, and that they brought him gold, and frankincense, and myrrh. We must look to sources outside the Bible to find the origins of any of the other familiar details, however.

[Originally posted 17 December, 2004, for the first Countdown to Christmas]

Have a joyous Christmas, everyone.

Festivus, called a “holiday for the rest of us,” reportedly arose in reaction against the commercialization of Christmas.  Traditional Festivus decor is spare:  a simple, low-maintenance aluminum Festivus pole.  Celebrations include food, drink, feats of strength, and airing of grievances.  This sounds like my mother’s family’s gatherings, wherever and whenever they occurred.

Festivus might have remained forever confined to one family and their close friends and neighbors, but one member of that family was a writer on the Seinfeld sitcom.  Writer Dan O’Keefe said his, “father discovered the holiday in a book published in 1966.”

In an interview published by the New York Time on December 19, 2004, the O’Keefes, elder and younger, said,

“It was entirely more peculiar than on the show,” the younger Mr. O’Keefe said from the set of the sitcom “Listen Up,” where he is now a writer. There was never a pole, but there were airings of grievances into a tape recorder and wrestling matches between Daniel and his two brothers, among other rites.

“There was a clock in a bag,” said Mr. O’Keefe, 36, adding that he does not know what it symbolized.

“Most of the Festivi had a theme,” he said. “One was, `Is there a light at the end of the tunnel?’ Another was, `Too easily made glad?’ “

His father, a former editor at Reader’s Digest, said the first Festivus took place in February 1966, before any of his children were born, as a celebration of the anniversary of his first date with his wife, Deborah. The word “Festivus” just popped into his head, he said from his home in Chappaqua, N.Y.

The holiday evolved during the 1970′s, when the elder Mr. O’Keefe began doing research for his book “Stolen Lightning” (Vintage 1983), a work of sociology that explores the ways people use cults, astrology and the paranormal as a defense against social pressures.

SOURCE

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HumanLight

HumanLight is a secular humanist celebration.  My son pointed out to me that it could not be a “holiday” because the root of “holiday” is “holy.”  He’s correct.  “Holy” does hold connotations related to Divinity, and secular humanists are “good without God.”

The celebration was created in 2001 by Joe Fox and Gary Brill, as a positive expression of humanist ideals, including reason, hope, compassion, and a deep concern for human rights and freedoms, human needs and interests.

I do not doubt that secular humanists enjoy gathering to celebrate those ideals, but I cannot help thinking that another factor entered into their motivation for setting up their celebration to coincide with Christmas, Yule, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Hogmanay, Dwali, and other Winter Solstice festivities:  the importuning of envious children, wanting to get in on the gifts.

 

Three more days until Christmas, and counting…

 ELVES  

We in the U.S. generally refer to Santa’s helpers as “elves”, but in appearance and function they might just as well be gnomes.  In Scandinavia, the jul-nisse, red gnomes, bring Christmas presents, as they have probably been doing since before Scandinavia became predominantly Christian.

Their becoming attached to the Santa myth appears to derive from two causes:  they were around as Gift-Givers and household helpers from antiquity, and the idea of one lone man, St. Nick, not only delivering all the gifts on Xmas, but making them, too, was too hard to swallow.

“Father Christmas needs helpers, goes the rationale behind this, mainly Scandinavian, tradition. There are a number of gnomes (In Finnish tontut, in Swedish tomtar, Nisse in Denmark and Norway), which help Father Christmas to manufacture the presents and distribute them (We in Northern Europe just do believe in industrial production).

“The tale of gnomes goes back to pagan times, when there was widespread belief in house gnomes which supposedly guarded homes against any evil (evil was ubiquitous in Viking times). These gnomes were mostly benevolent but they could be nasty if they were not properly treated. They were clad in grey with red caps. 

 The cult of gnomes withstood the onslaught of Christianity and was eventually linked with things Christian. The oral traditions were fixed in writing in the19th century when a succession of writers (Grimm Brothers, Thiele,Topelius, Rydberg) and artists (Hansen, Nyström) created the true Christmas gnomes.

written by Jarno Tarkoma

MERRY
XMAS
 

and a
HAPPY
NEW YEAR

 

Luke, Chapter 2, verses 5-7:

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(click thumbnails to enlarge)

According to St Luke the Evangelist (2,7) Jesus was born in a stable or at least in a place where animals were kept.  In fact the word presepio (Nativity Scene) comes from the Latin verb praesepire (to enclose, to hedge, to fence) and today it means manger or crib.

The Low Latin word cripia, meaning manger, was the origin of the terms creche, crib, krippe, krubba, szopka and wertep meaning Nativity Scene respectively in French, English, German and Swedish, Polish and Russian.

With time the tradition of the Presepio evolved in various phases. It was first found in churches, and this was the ecclesiastical period. The figures at first painted and then carved, were placed at side altars and chapels specially reserved for the Presepio, and during the Christmas Season the Presepio was decorated with lights and flowers. Later came the aristocratic period in which the tradition of a Presepio in the home became popular among the nobility and Nativity Scenes were ever richer and more pretentious, but also highly artistic. This tradition gradually extended to all the social classes acquiring an typically popular character which it retained.

freerepublic.com

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The two oldest depictions of the Nativity date from the fourth century.

The first is a fresco discovered in 1877 in   the Catacombs of Saint Sebastian in Rome.  It decorates the funeral chamber of a Christian family that lived around the year 380.   In that wall painting, there are no figures representing Mary or Joseph, but only the child in the manger attended by an ox and an ass.

I searched unsuccessfully for images of either of those paintings.  I did find one that is roughly contemporary with them, a fresco from a Roman catacomb, picturing Mary suckling baby Jesus, with the Star of Bethlehem overhead.

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St. Francis of Assisi is credited with popularizing the crèche tradition. In 1223, St. Francis was traveling to the Italian village Greccio, when the sight of shepherds in moonlit fields evoked images of the first Christmas. Inspired by the midnight scene, he beckoned villagers that Christmas Eve to light the sky with their torches, bring their animals, and re-enact the Nativity.

christmascreche.org

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The source of this misinterpretation stems from approximately two hundred years after the birth of Jesus, when an anonymous Christian wrote an expanded account of the birth of Jesus that has survived and is called The Protevangelium of James.

James had nothing to do with it. The author was not a Jew and did not understand Palestinian geography or Jewish tradition.  In that period many wrote books claiming famous people as the authors.
 
Scholars date this particular novel to around the year A.D. 200, and it is full of imaginative details. Jerome, the famous Latin scholar, attacked it, as did many of the popes.  It was composed in Greek but translated into Latin, Syriac, Armenian, Georgian, Ethiopic, Coptic and old Slavonic. The author had clearly read the Gospel stories, but he (or she) was unfamiliar with the geography of the Holy Land. In the novel, for example, the author describes the road between Jerusalem and Bethlehem as a desert. It is not a desert but rather rich farm land.
 
In the novel, as they approach Bethlehem, Mary says to Joseph, “Joseph, take me down from the ass, for the child within me presses me, to come forth.”
 
Responding to this request, Joseph leaves Mary in a cave and rushes off to Bethlehem to find a midwife. After seeing fanciful visions on the way, Joseph returns with the midwife (the baby has already been born) to be faced with a dark cloud and then a bright light overshadowing the cave.

A woman by the name of Salome appears out of nowhere and meets the midwife who tells her that a virgin has given birth and is still a virgin.  Salome expresses doubt at this marvel and her hand turns leprous as a result. After an examination, Mary’s claim is vindicated. Then an angel suddenly stands before Salome and tells her to touch the child. She does so and the diseased hand is miraculously healed and the novel spins on from there.

Authors of popular novels usually have good imaginations. An important part of this novel’s story line is that Jesus was born even before his parents arrived in Bethlehem. This novel is the earliest known reference to the notion that Jesus was born the night Mary and Joseph arrived in or near Bethlehem. The average Christian, who has never heard of this book, is nonetheless unconsciously influenced by it.

Kenneth E. Bailey, Doctor of Theology
The Story of the Birth of Jesus (PDF)

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Ken Bailey also says that Bethlehem was too small to have a regular inn.  Mangers, usually made of stone, were present inside private  homes.  Archaeologists have found many of them.  Cattle, donkeys and sheep were brought into the houses at night, and stayed in an area with floors several feet below those in the family’s living area.  Mary had relatives nearby, and scriptural references,  “while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered,” suggest that they had plenty of time to find lodging before the birth.

Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels

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In Naples, Italy, the production of figures for Nativity scenes is a major industry.  In 2008 –

…Beyond the thousands of angel, sheep, Mary and Joseph figures filling market stalls before Christmas, craftsmen say Obama has become a top seller.

“The ones we are selling the most of are those of Barack Obama, America’s new president, along with his wife Michelle,” said craftsman Genny Di Virgilio.

Tradition requires that the nativity scene be built up over time until Christmas Eve, when baby Jesus is put in the manger as the very last element of the display.

As always, figurine-makers provide a chance to choose a more light-hearted approach for the scene providing replicas of personalities who have made the news during the last year.

Beyond Obama, they are also selling figurines of French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni and even Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

news.yahoo.com

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The traditionally designed grouping above is representative of many small tabletop Nativity scenes from the past century or so.  The stylization shown below is typical of an artistic trend away from realism in the symbolic figures, although few sets are as simple as these core trios.  Most people prefer to add animals, wise men, shepherds, etc.

 

The set above, carved in Israel from native olive wood, can be purchased for $998US from Holy Land Treasures, but please try to restrain the impulse to buy.  Although that set is not as tacky as Rod Loranger’s crèche below, it is, nevertheless, more than ostentatious enough, in its understated way.

Loranger and his wife Dawn are infamous in Anchorage for their outdoor Christmas displays.  Neighbors have complained for years about the noise from amplified carols and the bright, flashing lights.  Every year, the display is attacked by vandals, but Rob and Dawn Loranger are impervious to art criticism and deaf to their neighbors’ cries of distress.

In 2004, according to the Anchorage Daily News, vandals, “slashed off the heads of Santa and Mrs. Claus, dolls that sat inside a miniature RV made to look like the family’s real mobile home in the carport.  The thieves also stole a movie projector that flashes Christmas images on the garage door and made off with the key component of the nativity scene.  ‘They cut the wire on the Baby Jesus,’ said Dawn Loranger, whose husband, Rob, makes many of the family’s Christmas displays by hand.  After cutting Baby Jesus out of the manger, the thugs fled down a nearby bike path, flinging the kidnapped infant and the headless Clauses to the ground, said Dawn, who discovered the destruction when she awoke Sunday morning. ‘I cried all the way to church,’ she said.”

*sob*

 - Archaeoastronomy – Diverse Traditions

Tuesday, the planet reaches the annual point in its solar orbit where again it starts turning its northern face toward the sun.  The December solstice occurs at 23:37 (11:37 PM) Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) on December 21, 2010.  It is also known as the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere.

Winter Solstice 2010 times:

At this time of year, when the sun is so low in the southern sky that it doesn’t rise above the treetops, I  can use all the light, warmth and celebration I can get.  My sleep pattern is disrupted by an atavistic hibernation instinct, and I’m as likely as not to sleep late and miss every precious minute of our brief sub-arctic daylight.  I hate when that happens. 

Summer Solstice, when the sun barely dips below the northern horizon and the “night” doesn’t get fully dark, is a bittersweet time because we know that from that point on for the next six months it will only get darker and darker.  Winter Solstice here is the most glorious day of the year, the day that the sun starts coming back.  Considering all the time I have been giving to covering Christmas, I would be horribly remiss not to blog about Winter Solstice.

I cannot cover Winter Solstice without mentioning archaeoastronomy.   Everywhere on the planet that the turning of the seasons was celebrated, there have been ways to calculate and predict solstices and equinoxes, and people whose role in their cultures was to watch for the changes of the seasons.  In early agricultural communities, it was a matter of survival.  Knowing when to plant and harvest could make the difference between life and death for an entire tribe.

It also makes sense, in cultures where the light of the sun and its warmth were so intimately related to survival, that solstices would become sacred events to be celebrated.  At the Summer Solstice, the sun  is as high in the heavens as it gets, the days are longest and are growing warmer as winter’s cold is banished.  That alone is sufficient cause to celebrate.

At the Winter Solstice, the sun is warming the opposite hemisphere and is at its lowest angle of the whole year, giving a few hours of light but not much heat since its rays must pass through more of the atmosphere to reach us.  But ancient people’s personal experience, the stories of their ancestors, and the wisdom of the archaeoastronomers (sometimes called “seers” or “shamans” or some equivalent title) assured them that as this longest dark night passed, the days would begin to lengthen, even though there were some cold months yet to endure before warmth and life were restored to the earth.  The sun’s “turnaround”, then, was reason for celebration.  It’s dark, it’s cold, but the lifegiving sun will return!

In various locations around the world our ancient ancestors built structures designed to mark the seasons.  At Newgrange, in Ireland, is an ancient passage tomb, 500 years older than the Great Pyramic at Giza, and a millennium older than Stonehenge.  As the Winter Solstice sun rises over Red Mountain across the Boyne Valley, a beam of light through a “window,” the roofbox, stretches through the passage and illuminates an inner chamber.  This chamber is dark except for a few minutes once a year. In my mind’s eye I see an old crone, sleeping in the inner chamber, having lost track of the long nights and cold wet days, awakening to the sun and hurrying out to spread the word:  Here comes the Sun!

It is a narrow beam of light, and is only visible for fourteen minutes at sunrise on the Winter Solstice.  The wobble in the Earth’s axis has caused some changes in the angle at which the beam of light enters the chamber.  It is theorized that in Neolithic times, it struck a certain stone and was reflected onto the carving of a triple spiral on another stone.

These days, a lottery is held each year and about a hundred people are allowed to enter Newgrange to see the Light on the 5 days around the Winter Solstice.  In 2010, 25,349 people applied for the privilege.  Applications are now available for the 2011 Winter Solstice.  The drawing will be held September 30.

National Geographic News for December, 2009, had an excellent Solstice article.

Spirals are a symbol for life and / or time, across many cultures on this planet.  The lines spiraling out from the center can also provide a means for measuring the approach of a solstice, as they do at Fajada Butte in Chaco Canyon National Historic Park in New Mexico.

As the Summer Solstice approaches, at successive sunrises the Sun Dagger, a beam of light striking the wall behind three gigantic slabs of stone that fell from the Butte in some ancient time, comes closer and closer to the center, until on the longest day of the year it bisects the spiral exactly across the center.
At sunrise on the Winter Solstice, two beams of light bracket this same spiral carving.

Less obvious on the Fajada Butte carving are two grooves, one above the other, that mark the movement of the Moon in its 18.6 year Metonic Cycle.  At the rise of the full moon in its farthest northern position, a light moon shadow is cast along the upper groove.  9.3 years later when the moon reaches its furthest southern position, the rising full moon casts its shadow on the lower groove.

The archaeoastronomers left little besides their standing stones, a few ancient structures, and carvings in stone to show us that the turn of the seasons was important to them.  There are probably some remnants of their celebrations that have endured, and still survive in our celebrations now.  Cross-culturally, the Winter Solstice festivals involve feasting, fire, and light, in apparent attempts to offset the cold, dark and scarcity of winter, and to celebrate the brighter days to come.

The ancient Chinese believed that the yin qualities of darkness and cold were most powerful at the winter solstice, but it was also the turning point that gave way to the light and warmth of yang. Today, the celebration of Dong Zhi is the second most important festival of the Chinese calendar after Chinese New Year or Spring Festival.  A special seasonal treat is tang yuan, colorful, glutinous rice balls in a sweet syrup.

Makara Sankramana is a festival held in India around the time of the winter solstice celebrating the sun’s ascendency, marked by gift giving and special prayers.   Til-gul, sesame seeds and sweet jaggery, is distributed in symbolism of friendship and “sweet” speech and behavior.  The festival is dedicated to the Sun God, and light is seen as symbolic of intellectual illumination. It is the capacity to discriminate between the right and the wrong, the just and the unjust, truth and falsehood, virtue and vice.  Cattle are washed, and their horns are painted bright colors and covered with shiny metal caps.  Beads, bells, sheafs of corn and flowers are hung around the cows’ necks.

On the Jewish calendar, the Hanukkah “festival of lights,” commemorates an event at the re-dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem after the overthrow of Greek rule:  a small quantity of oil to light the Temple’s menorah miraculously lasted eight days.  The festival is seen by many to be a metaphor for the hopeful lengthening of days brought on by the winter solstice.  During the eight days of the festival, the nine candles of the menorah are lit and blessings are said.  Games are played, stories told, gifts given, and traditional foods are enjoyed.

Vestiges of the ancient Germanic Yule festival live on in winter feasting that occurs around Christmas, as well as the tradition of the Yule log whose embers were believed to frighten away evil spirits.  The early beginnings of Christmas, in fact, have direct roots in the winter solstice celebration that took place at Saturnalia, dedicated to Saturn, the god of agriculture in Roman times.  When Christianity was introduced to the Roman Empire in the early 4th Century, the church in its wisdom allowed the Saturnalia tradition to continue, but concluded the week-long festival on the traditional Roman feast day of Sol Invictus, the victorious sun, with a day dedicated to the birth of Christ, or Christ’s Mass, better known today as Christmas.

Twenty-first century Wiccans and Neo-Pagans celebrate Yule in various ways, honoring Sun, Moon, and Earth.  This is not a cohesive group with a single strong tradition, but one common element exists through all Pagan Yule celebrations:  LIGHT.  Now, at the darkest time of year (in the Northern Hemisphere – for those in the Southern Hemisphere, Christmas and Chanukah are summer celebrations) we – celebrants of all religions: Christian, Hindu, Jew, Buddhist, Pagan or whatever -  light candles, make fires and comfort ourselves for the hardships of winter by anticipating the renewal of spring and rejoicing in the life that we know lies sleeping within the Earth.

Click any cartoon above to make it big enough to read.

The species Rangifer tarandus is native to Scandinavia, Greenland, and other northern areas of Europe, Asia, and North America.  They had been native to Scotland until their extinction in the tenth century, and they were reintroduced there about half a century ago.  The wild ones are tasty and nutritious, and the domesticated ones are working stock in addition to being a source of meat and milk.  Generally they pull sleds, but in Siberia they are also ridden.  (Click any thumbnail below to enlarge.)

Around here, in Alaska, they are known as caribou unless they are domesticated, in which case they become reindeer.  That makes sense, doesn’t it, if you think a caribou looks something like a deer?  Deer with reins are reindeer.

They are known from archaeological evidence in northern Europe to have been domesticated since sometime between the bronze age and iron age, close to three thousand years ago.

The earliest known print reference to Santa Claus with (possibly) a single flying reindeer is this from William B. Gilley in  A Children’s Friend (1821):

 
“Old Santeclaus with much delight
His reindeer drives this frosty night
O’er chimney tops, and tracks of snow
To bring his yearly gifts to you.”

The image of Santa with a team of reindeer appears to have originated with Thomas Nast in a series of illustrations he drew between 1863 and 1886, a few of which were copied as color lithographs by George P. Walker to illustrate a popular children’s book, Santa Claus and his Works, around 1870.

(My source for much of the above info is B.K. Swartz, Jr.’s college course on Christmas history.)

 

The likeliest origin for both Santa’s aeronautical reindeer and his residence at the North Pole is in the Russian myth of Grandfather Frost, “Ded Moroz”, who is the grandfather of Snegurochka, the snow maiden.  Ded Moroz drives reindeer to pull his sleigh, delivers gifts, and fights off Baba Yaga, the witch who tries to steal the presents.

  

Part of the myth of Grandfather Frost is similar to that of the Anglo-American Jack Frost who personifies and explains the appearance of frost, hoarfrost, rime and ice in freezing weather. 

Even though Jack Frost has a chilling effect, he is an elfin and friendly character in comparison with the ancient pagan Grandfather Frost, a powerful smith who forges rigid chains of ice to bind water to the earth in winter.  In contemporary Russia, some aspects of the Saint Nicholas legend have adhered to the older pagan Ded Moroz, making him a milder and friendlier character.

That most famous reindeer of all, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, was the brainchild of Robert L. May.  May worked for the Montgomery-Ward department store chain as an advertising copy writer.  The company had been buying Christmas coloring books as a promotional give-away to children.  In 1939, to save money, Robert May was asked to come up with a story that could be printed in a give-away booklet. 

May quit his copywriting job in 1951 and spent seven years managing his creation before returning to Montgomery Ward, where he worked until his retirement in 1971. May died in 1976, comfortable in the life his reindeer creation had provided for him.

(source:  snopes.com)

I had one of those books when I was little, and as children do I read it over and over until I knew the story by rote.  Although the best-known Rudolph is the one from the song and the subsequent short film narrated by Burl Ives, May’s original Rudolph wasn’t quite the same story.  Originally, Santa found Rudolph by accident when he noticed the glow from his nose as he was delivering gifts to the home where Rudolph lived with his loving parents.   I recall the first time I heard Gene Autry sing the song.  Mama and I were in our kitchen listening to the radio.  I must have been five years old, because that was the year that record was released.  I was outraged, and complained to my mother:  “He got the story all wrong!”

If you are just coming in on this countdown to Christmas, below is a list of the episodes currently in existence.  I may be inspired or persuaded to take on other aspects of the Xmas mythos this season or in those to follow.
*The ones I like best or had the most fun researching and writing are starred.
1.   svwX – turning the 12 days of Christmas upside-down and backwards*
2.   Why postpone the joy?
3.   Origins of the Candy Cane
4.   Two Patriotic (Xmas) Poems – Giving the Authors their Due
5.   White Christmas  by Robert W. Service (not my #1 favorite Xmas poem by him, but pretty good anyway, in its own sentimental way)
6.   All about Christmas trees*
7.   Holidays are Hazardous (political correctness and other evils)
8.   Born in a Manger (origin and history of the crèche or Nativity scene)*
9.   Holiday Treats for Gifts or for Eating – six recipes:  3 sugary & 3 gluten-free lo-cal
10.   Io Saturnalia! – ancient history*
11. It really is a WONDERFUL LIFE. – Featured Grownups essay on how I made my little world a better place.
12. Xmas in War and Something Else – war and peace with a seasonal twist, in poetry, pictures, cartoons, etc.*
13. Winter Solstice – Sacred Survival (archaeoastronomy and diverse traditions)
14. How did reindeer get involved, anyway?
15. Mistletoe, Holly, Ivy, Poinsettias and Yule Logs
16. Draggin’ the Tree (cowboy Christmas poetry)
17. The Trapper’s Christmas Eve and The Christmas Tree by Robert W. Service
18. The Ancestry and Evolution of Santa Claus*
19. The Elves and Gnomes of Christmas
20.  The Shepherds and the Angels
21.  A small collection of seasonally appropriate, but otherwise inappropriate, images unworthy of attention by anyone except one with a seriously sick sense of humor.
22.  My favorite Christmas Poem

If you need reassurance, ask for it. 

If someone’s sadness touches you, tell her that.

If you’re not seeing the trend here, not getting what I’m getting at, stay with me.  I’ll try to explain.

Some of us have inhibitions around revealing our innermost feelings.  We may love someone, and instead of telling her we love her, we tell her she is… beautiful, admirable, inspiring, brilliant… whatever — whatever, in our own minds, is lovable or worthy.  That puts the emphasis on the object of our affections, not on the feelings we’re feeling.

From E. J. Gold, a wise and savvy man, I learned that when most people ask for help, what they really want is reassurance.  When I first read that statement, I questioned it immediately.  That’s not how I operate.  If I ever needed reassurance, I’d seek it directly.  If I ask for help, it is because I need help.   But I have been observing people, and I must concur with E. J.:  when most people ask for help, they don’t want real help.  They want to be reassured that they’ve done the best they can or that they can do it, that they are, in fact, helpless, or that whatever it was, it wasn’t all that important anyway, or was impossible all along.

When some people see others suffering, or hear them complaining about how unfair life is, or observe them beating up on themselves for their faults and failings, they seek to build these others up by exaggerating their virtues and strengths, by attributing to them admirable characteristics that are either not present or in very scant supply, or they offer reassurance by professing love that they may not feel.

Conversely, when one does something of which another disapproves, that disapproval is only rarely expressed directly.  More commonly, disapproval is expressed with sarcasm, ostracism, or other indirect means, depending on the judgment of the observer, the relative perceived status and power of observer and object, the seriousness or severity of the offense, and other, more idiosyncratic factors — anything, basically, except a flat statement of disapproval.

There are pitfalls in these tactics, for everyone involved.   A false statement might be believed and acted upon as if it were true, leading to, at best, eventual disillusionment.  Help asked and given is a waste of time and other resources, for all involved, and can cause all sorts of odd or uncomfortable repercussions, if help wasn’t really wanted or needed. 

Love that is kept in, felt but not expressed, serves no one.  However, for cultural reasons, this is a thorny and complex issue.  Some kinds of “love” are forbidden between some individuals.  Also, the “love” felt by person A might not be the type of feeling that person B calls, “love.”  That injunction, “If you love someone, tell him so,”  requires, for effective and non-destructive observance, a measure of discretion and… detail, translation, explanation.  A bald statement, “I love you,” can mean anything from “thank you” to “I want to jump your bones.”  Be specific, and say what you really mean.  Saying, “I love you,” without using that troublesome word, “love,” can be an enjoyable and rewarding challenge.

In keeping with my enjoinder to fit one’s action to its intent, let me expand on what I was observing and thinking when I began to hatch this essay.  I had been noticing people engaged in online interactions, dropping love bombs  on people with whom they wanted to gain points, or for the purpose of building up others they thought needed a boost, and using sarcasm to put down some they apparently thought needed to be cut down.  While there are some who do a lot of one and little or none of the other, many people use both tactics in nearly equal measure, picking up or picking on those they approve or disapprove, respectively.

All of these tactics are counterproductive.  Covert (or even blatant, overt) manipulation of others is a dysfunctional style of relating.  Relationships built on such foundations are dysfunctional relationships.  Frequent or consistent manipulation is a red flag for personality disorders.  It is a symptom of psychopathology, and it is a contagious form of craziness.  In the interests of a healthier society and a saner world, if you love someone, tell her so.