Winter solstice

I was going to offer in today’s entry that, while I love Christmas, I’ve grown to feel more connected to winter solstice in the past twenty years or so. The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized such an idea was really more complicated than I originally thought.

First, let me say, Christmas is great. It is perhaps the best national/international holiday around. I don’t mean to discount Hanukkah, Kwanza, or Ramadan, but as a Christian, I have a lifelong experience with the celebration of the birth of Jesus. And for most Westerners, whether Christian or not, this end-of-year season permeates just about all aspects of culture: music, literature, commerce, mythology, cuisine, even social contracts. No other Western holiday or holy day can compete with that. The three other events mentioned above are also multiple day ‘seasons,’ but again, they aren’t in my cultural experience. I’ll let other folks sing their praises.

Ever since I was a kid, Christmas was special. The Jesus-thing was front and center for our family. When I was little, my father made a small business of building creches he sold to friends and, for a time, even sold through a downtown church supply. We kids helped collect bug-free bark from downed trees to side those little nativity buildings. After the bark was nailed to the plywood walls, we gave it a black ‘wash,’ then a splash of white or silver paint to give the appearance of frost. One of those wonderful little buildings survives and currently resides on the piano upstairs, just opposite the Christmas tree. I look at it as a family heirloom. My sibs feel the same way about theirs.

And then, of course, there is the Christmas giving. I mean, what kid wouldn’t like Christmas? ‘Good’ behavior is rewarded with gifts from Santa. What’s not to like about that? But then comes all the commercial hype that encourages us to buy Norelcos for the guys, something from Kay’s for the gals, and tons of toys for the little folk. Commercials, commercials, commercials. Combining that with the idea of ‘saving’ retail businesses with strong end-of-year sales, tends to leave me, as an adult, with a guilt complex that, if I don’t spend enough, retail job loss will be my fault.

Winter solstice. Now that’s a different idea. A natural idea, in fact. First, Christmas was placed in the Christian calendar because of solstice. I’m not sure exactly how many cultures recognized the shortest day/longest night of the year with ceremonies, but you can bet it was widespread. Christians placed Christmas in this timeframe to compete with ‘pagan’ rituals and give the faithful something special to celebrate. Same thing happened to springtime’s Easter ‘rebirth.’

Christmas has had a long and healthy run for the last two millenia. But winter solstice goes back much farther. And that is the main reason I want to be mindful of it. Long before homo sapiens lived in community, there was seasonal awareness. The changing starting place of the sun on the eastern horizon was connected to warm and cold, hunger and the growing season. Life depended on early people’s awareness of when days began to get longer and an anticipated more plentiful food supply. That’s really important stuff, you know? And it’s not mythology, either. It’s life.

And I guess that’s why I want to feel more connected to solstices and equinoxes these days. As I get older I recognize I am more human than Christian; more product of the earth than product of ancient mythology. Both are significant, but I prefer to think of myself first as an Earthling.

Maybe I ought to start a fire out in the back yard tonight to remind the sun not to forget about us and begin its journey back to our growing season starting tomorrow. Care to bring your drum?

Today’s elder idea: Love is all --

Emily Dickinson

Inscription on Cindy’s and my wedding bands. On this winter solstice we celebrate our 17th anniversary.

photo: The first Windham Hill solstice music sampler (1985).