Darkest Before the Light Returns

The 2023 Winter Solstice occurs in Paradelle tonight, December 21, 2023, at 10:27 PM ET. Also called the hibernal solstice, it occurs when either of Earth’s poles reaches its maximum tilt away from the Sun. This actually happens twice yearly, if you take into account each hemisphere. Tomorrow begins winter in the north and summer in the south.

In some ways, I have come to celebrate the Winter Solstice in some ways more than Christmas or the New Year, because it is grounded in a physical reality. It is the shortest day. It is a still point around which the world turns. There is a real shift happening at this time to this beautiful planet that shelters us.

Not a bad thing for us to hold our collective breath for a moment today here in the Northern Hemisphere, and begin to believe in the slow return of the light. Tonight is the darkest night but then the light returns. Light a candle today.

The winter solstice has been a significant time of year in many cultures since prehistory. It marks the symbolic death and rebirth of the sun, as the gradual waning of daylight hours is reversed and begins to grow again. I consider it a very hopeful day, even though I do not like winter weather,

Winter solstice celebrations often symbolically honor things. You don’t need to visit Stonehenge or dance around a bonfire in the moonlight, but surely, a least one way of marking the solstice must connect with you. Here are some possibilities you might celebrate: Symbols or ceremonies marking fire and light that are symbolic of release and rebirth, or life and death; marking the rising Sun, and the rising Moon; note any type of harvest; make peace with the darkness outside or within; any ritual acts that for you give life meaning.

Solstice Gods, Goddesses and Monsters

In researching the winter solstice, I found a number of good and bad characters that are associated with this time.

In the way that the solstice can be seen as the beginning of longer days and shorter nights, there are optimistic figures that include Tonantzin in Mexico, Cailleach Bheru in Scotland, Horus in Egypt and Spider Grandmother by the Hopi.

Horus

Mythological gods and goddesses associated with the winter solstice, also have optimistic stories of the Earth’s regeneration or rebirth. The goddess, Beaivi is associated with health and fertility. In Scandanavia, it was believed that she flew across the night sky in a structure made of reindeer bones to bring back the plants that the reindeer needed to eat. Reindeer were so important to them that she was worshipped during this time of year.

In Italian folklore, La Befana is a goddess who rides around the world on her broom during the solstice, leaving candies and gifts to well-behaved children. Placing a rag doll in her likeness by the front door or window entices her into the home.

But not all the myths have benevolent characters. In Finnish mythology, Louhi, the “witch goddess of the North,” kidnapped the Sun and Moon and held them captive inside a mountain, causing the darkness of winter. She was considered to be more wicked than other benevolent goddesses.

The Yupik peoples of Alaska and the Russian Far East tell the story of the Kogukhpak, subterranean monsters with bulbous bodies and frog-like legs who could only be killed by the Sun. On the winter solstice, the Kogukhpak emerged to hunt. When the people had found mammoth carcasses on the Arctic tundra, they were said to be the corpses of the Kogukhpak who stayed out too long and died when the Sun returned.

Similarly, the Kallikantzaros in Greek mythology could only be killed by sunlight, so they emerged during the solstice to wreak havoc. They were angry, hairy, gnome-like creatures who lived underground. They wanted to cut down the tree of life.

kallikantzaros – by Spencer Alexander McDaniel.

Yuletide

If you have heard the word yule, it probably was in a song or verse related to Christmas, but the Yule time predates Christmas.

Modern Christians all over the world celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ on Christmas, December 25. However, it is believed that this date was chosen to offset the pagan celebrations of Saturnalia and Natalis Invicti. 

Yule is also known as Alban Arthan and was one of the “Lesser Sabbats” of the Wiccan year in a time when ancient believers celebrated the rebirth of the Sun God and days with more light.

In 2022, Yule began with the solstice on December 21 and ends on Sunday, January 1, 2023. For a long time, I have believed that any Yule/Christmas celebrating (decorating etc.) should only begin with the solstice. Retailers do not agree with me.

For Christians, celebrating the birth of the “true light of the world” was appropriately set to synchronize with the December solstice because from that point onwards, the days have more light (at least in the Northern Hemisphere).

Christmas is sometimes referred to as Yule. The word “yule” may have derived from the Norse word jól or juul, referring to a pre-Christian winter solstice festival.  This took place annually around the time of the December solstice and lasted for 12 days. (The Lesser Sabbats fall on the solstices and equinoxes.)

Yuletide comes from Yule +‎ –tide (“period around a holiday”), from the Old English tīd (“time”)

The Feast of Juul was observed in Scandinavia at this winter solstice and fires were lit to symbolize the heat, light and life-giving properties of the returning sun.

A Yule or Juul log was brought in and burned on the hearth in honor of the Scandinavian god Thor. A piece of the log was kept as both a token of good luck and as kindling for the following year’s log.

In England, Germany, France and other European countries, the Yule log was burned until nothing but ash remained. The ashes were then collected and either strewn on the fields as fertilizer every night until Twelfth Night or kept as a charm and or as medicine.

French peasants believed that if the ashes were kept under the bed, they would protect the house against thunder and lightning.

The present-day custom of lighting a Yule log at Christmas that is sometimes adorned with evergreens, holly and pine cones is believed to have originated in the bonfires associated with the Feast of Juul.

That Yule Log cake that people buy in the stores is pure retail marketing. Thor would not be happy.

According to the Yule Blog, the Yule Goat is a Scandinavian tradition that predates the arrival of Christianity in Northern Europe. The goat was a symbol of the Norse god Thor, whose flying chariot was pulled by two goats.

When entertaining the other gods, Thor would kill goats to feed his guests and then resurrect them afterward, using his hammer Mjöllnir.

In Sweden, a Christmas custom based on this tale of Thor is still performed in the Juloffer, or Yule Sacrifice. Two actors sacrifice a third player dressed as a goat while singing a song, but at the end of the song, the goat is resurrected. Yule Goats are also made of straw both large and small as decorations.

The Yule Goat was once considered to be a bringer of gifts, but this role has been taken over by Father Christmas, who sometimes rides the Yule Goat.

The Tree Man

The solstice came, the days lengthen and
winter blows colder winds, but tree man,
a gentle soul, not a horror legend,
holds on to his brown autumn coat,
guarding the creek, watching me grow old.

Reposted from writingtheday.wordpress.com

A Pedestal of the Sun for the Solstice

Analemma printed on a globe (Globe Museum, Vienna)

The second solstice for the year is today, December 21st. It literally happens at a moment in time but like many cosmic events, most of us think of it as a day. For those in Northern Hemisphere, it will be the winter solstice and for those in Southern Hemisphere, it will be the summer solstice marking the first day of the two seasons.

At that moment, it will be sunset in North and South America, sunrise in far-eastern Asia, midnight in Africa and Europe, and noontime over the Pacific Ocean.

In Paradelle (Northern Hemisphere), we will have our shortest day and longest night of the year. This month, one rotation of Earth relative to the noonday sun – what we call a day – is about 30 seconds longer than the average 24 hours. Get past that “day” that is on your calendar or the idea of that clock face.

You would actually be better off measuring the true length of a solar day (the time from one solar noon to the next) by using a sundial.

The photo at the top of this post shows an analemma printed on a globe that shows the sun’s declination. That is the angular distance from the celestial equator and the difference (in minutes) between time as measured by the clock and time as measured by the sun. Sounds complicated, right?

In fact, in astronomy, an analemma (from Greek “pedestal of a sundial”) is a curve representing the changing angular offset of a celestial body (usually the Sun) from its mean position on the celestial sphere as viewed from another celestial body (usually the Earth).  Still complicated.

Analemma plotted as seen at noon GMT from the Royal Observatory, Greenwich (latitude 51.48° north, longitude 0.0015° west).

The Earth’s annual revolution around the Sun is an elliptical orbit. That means it is tilted relative to the plane of the equator. We, being observers at a fixed point on the Earth, see the Sun appear to move in an analemma around a mean position. If you observed the position of the Sun in the sky and plotted it or photographed it at the same time every few days, all year-long, the points would trace out the analemma.

I did this very unscientifically one year by just noting where the Sun appeared (I used a compass) when viewed every morning as I had my breakfast and gazed out the east window. It amazed me how far the Sun moved during the year. I ended up with a graph of the Sun’s declination plotted against the equation of time.

Like the “equator” or other terms, an analemma is an abstract concept. It has no physical existence except in diagrams and time-lapse photographs. Nevertheless, we do describe it as if it were a real, visible celestial object.

This afternoon analemma photo was taken in Murray Hill, NJ – not far from Paradelle – at Bell Laboratories where my father worked in the 1950s and early 196os.

Celebrating Saturnalia

In Ancient Rome the winter solstice festival of Saturnalia began today, December 17.  It was a festival that lasted for seven days.

Created to honor Saturn, the father of the gods, it was interestingly celebrated by suspending discipline and a reversal of the usual order.

It was said that this was the time to suspend grudges. Businesses, courts, and schools were closed. Some accounts say that even warfare was suspended for the week.

Want to celebrate Saturnalia? If you need another reason to have a party, here are some suggestions from the Romans.  Masquerades were common. Traditional gifts were real or imitation fruit (fertility), dolls (symbolic of the custom of human sacrifice), and candles (small symbols of pagan solstice bonfire celebrations).

I have read that a mock king would be chosen. It would probably be a slave or criminal. It sounds like a good thing since this king was able to run wild for the week, but unfortunately, the king was usually killed at the end.

As with much of the Roman empire, Saturnalia degenerated into a week of debauchery and crimes. Today the word “saturnalia” means a period of unrestrained license and revelry.

You can go out this week and look at the sky and see Saturn. In the Northern Hemisphere, if you look at the constellation Gemini which rises above the eastern horizon, a bit west of Gemini is the brilliant planet Jupiter looking like a star to most people.  Just before sunrise, Saturn, Venus, and Mercury appear above the southeastern horizon.