December 20, 2010

• Winter Solstice – Sacred Survival

   - 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:

  Tuesday Margasirsha 15th, 2067 at 11:37 PM Hindu Lunar Calendar
  Wednesday uinal 17 10th, tun 17, katun 19, baktun 12 at 11:37 PM Mayan Calendar

  2:37 PM Alaska Time

  6:37 PM EST- Xanga Time

  Click any image to enlarge.

  

  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.
  

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