The Winter Solstice 2019

Saint Lucia Swedish Celebration 

Solstice Blessings to All

On this, the longest and darkest night,  we light our candles and our bonfires, as ancestors have done for uncounted centuries, around the world and in many languages, before us, in the depths of winter, an affirmation of light and warmth and the Sun's return.  I think what is important to affirm is also what Light each of us wants to ignite within ourselves, that might illuminate not only our own lives, but the lives of other Beings of the Earth.  And I also reflect on the healing and creative powers of  what poet David Whyte called "sweet darkness", the times of silence and incubation that are wedded to the times of  illumination.

"To go in the dark with a light
is to know the light. 

To know the dark, go dark.
 Go without sight, and find
 that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
 and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings."

Wendell Berry

Winter Solstice, Willits Community (2012) Photo courtesy JJ Idarius and Ann Waters

Winter Solstice inside Newgrange

SWEET DARKNESS

When your eyes are tired
the world is  tired also.
When your vision has gone
no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes to recognize its own.

There you can be sure you are not beyond love.
The dark will be your womb tonight.
The night will give you a horizon further than you can see.

You must learn one thing:
the world was made to be free in.
Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness
and the sweet confinement of your aloneness
to learn

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you.

David Whyte

Pax Gaia

Pax Gaia (the Peace of Earth) is the most compelling challenge of our time. Geologian, Thomas Berry introduced this theme after 9/11 in an essay reflecting the urgent need to embrace a cosmology of truly comprehensive Gaian  peace. It is a peace that transcends Pax Romana (the peace of an empire) and Pax Humana (peace among humans). 

"We are called as an evolving humanity to the Great Work that engenders Pax Gaia. To this end we create and foster deep cultural therapies that address the deep cultural pathology of our time that has brought about such ecological damage."

 (Thomas Berry, Evening Thoughts, 2006) 

 

"Only now can we see with clarity that we live not so much in a cosmos (a place) as in a cosmogenesis (a process) -- scientific in its data, mythic in its form."  

~ The Universe Story by Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry  

The Winter Solstice was perhaps the earliest universal holy day, celebrated in different ways   throughout the world from the earliest days of human culture.  The Solstice is the ancient center of the Holiday Season and our New Year.   When language was young, when even the gods and goddesses had not yet taken human forms in the human imagination, but ran instead with deer in the forest, flew with the wings of crows, or were glimpsed nameless from the awed depths of every numinous pool, sensed as Presence in the womb depths of caves........ even then, the Return of the Light was a holy day, a day of celebration. 

Long ago ancestors lit fires to welcome the "shining god" who was the sun returning from mysterious underworld depths. They built stones or made circles or created doorways to be aligned with the sun's pathway. They lit fires as sympathetic magic, fires to light and imitate the Sun's passage (which is why we still light candles, and Christmas lights, today, although no one remembers.........)

Welcoming the Sun, they left offerings of food to show their gratitude, and invented songs or danced throughout the longest cold night, encouraging, helping the Sun on its  difficult journey to return to the world, and to the promise of new life.

I remember at this time of the Holy/Wholly/Holidays that holy days begin among our most ancient, instinctual roots, taproots that reach down, deeply entwined within the visible and invisible web of  Gaia's life. 

Planet Earth turns her face toward her star again, circling in brilliant orbit, bearing every evolving, responsive, living, infinitely intertwined be-ing within her fragile, exquisite azure skin on her long journey.   

Perhaps we sensed, as the sun rose on the Winter Solstice,  that pre-verbal, instinctual knowing, found hidden beneath the pages of any book written with five fingered hands, beneath each inscribed layer of words, signs, hieroglyphs, pictures in jet or ochre or sepia, luminous beneath the oldest pages.  A veneer peels away, revealing a pentimento, an ancient heartbeat, shared again with all beings that keep vigil on the long night of the winter Solstice, and celebrate the Return of the Light with many different religious traditions.  

I pledge allegiance

to the soil of Turtle Island,

and to the beings

who thereon dwell

one ecosystem in diversity

under the sun

With joyful

interpenetration for all.

Gary Snyder

Woven - 20th Annual Solstice Celebration at Zuzi's

 

"The art of weaving is a profound metaphor for understanding the workings of the universe and our place in it. Through the physical process of weaving, we gain a better understanding of this world and how we as human beings are woven into it. We are bound to our bodies with the fragile threads of earth. Our skeleton is a loom on which every system is strung and woven. The meeting of opposite elements woven into a whole is the quest of many seekers to find meaning in their life. The art of weaving is the essential art of creating the unified one of two opposites. Archaeological findings suggest that weaving is at least 20,000 years old, but because weavings are so organic and biodegradable, no physical evidence this old has been obtained. In this Solstice celebration we envision honoring the interconnectedness of our humanity as we move forward with the return of the sun."

Woven - 20th Annual Solstice Celebration

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ZUZI Dance 738 N 5th Ave, Tucson, Arizona 85705

As the shortest day of the year, the winter Solstice marks the turning from the cold, dark days of winter to the warmer, lighter days of spring and summer. Historically, this season is a time of reflection, renewal, and community celebration. ZUZI! Dance production and local dancers, aerialists, musicians, and from the Tucson performing arts community and the weaving community will host this show. This collaborative effort highlights the elemental qualities of weaving.

I am pleased that my mask "The Weaver" will be performed, along with my "Spider Woman Speaks" spoken word performance - here is the link to that:  https://soundcloud.com/user-972033003/spiderwomanwithmusic3-2

“Woven” is directed/choreographed by Nanette Robinson, with special guest artist and choreographer Mirela Roza and Navajo weaver Marlow Kutoni. During the performance there will be lobby demonstrations by Tucson Handweavers and Spinners Guild.

In addition to the dancers in the cast, ZUZI! Dance holds a youth aerial workshop and a community workshop that are open to anyone to learn a piece of choreography to perform in the show. This year woven into the the community piece is the newly formed dance company, Dansequence, Karenne Koo, Director. These Solstice Community Workshops have been a long-standing tradition for ZUZI! to create a space and opportunity for people of all ages and abilities to work, move, learn and grow together. 

Participants have ranged in age from 7 to 72. This multi-generational approach to dance is rooted in ZUZI!’s belief that individual perspectives shared and shaped with others creates a healthy community. We will be hosting a gallery fiber arts display from local and regional weavers that will be on sale. A portion of proceeds from sales will go to ZUZI! Dance. 

ZUZI! will be accepting donations for Sister Joses Homeless Shelter for Women of sweaters, scarves, socks, hats, gloves. Bring a donation and you will receive a $2 discount for show.

The Winter Solstice

Serpent Mound illuminated through the efforts of the Friends of Serpent Mound

This has been a strange year, a year in which chaos and shadow and tragedy has been rising, as well as extraordinary bravery and new clarity.  A year of tremendous contrasts, and I think many of us are frightened now, and unsure of what to do.  Lately I have been feeling the need to make circles, to bring forth the "light" wherever it can be found, including inside me, that is inclusive, that reminds me of how sacred the world is, and how we, as human beings among so many incredible beings on our Mother Earth are all a part of each other.  And the Solstice is a Circle as well.

When language was young, when even the gods and goddesses had not yet entirely taken human form but still ran with the deer in the forest, or flew with the wings of crows, or were glimpsed the depths of a numinous pool, when World was still a conversation, and poems were spoken by both bards and by trees,  and our unimaginable ancestors danced and kept watch  through the long, cold, dark night....... even then, long before the writing of words, but perhaps not before the telling of tales,  this was a (w)holy day. 

The Sun was returning to the dark and sleeping world, bringing life-giving light and warmth.

Before ever there were Christmas lights, or candles, or even torches burning olive oil, fires were lit to welcome the Shining One returning from the depths of the underworld.  Stones aligned with the  Sun's journey made a pathway, and food and drink and gifts were given to the young god, just born,  to give him  strength for the new year and his long bright journey across the skylands. 

Perhaps  they  danced through the long cold night, and when they lit bonfires, they did so reverently and with love, knowing that they were  helping him on his way, keeping vigil for him.  Before ever he was called the Christ, or Osiris, or Lugh, he had other names, names lost to history that still whisper and sound sometimes sing again among the stones and circles of another time.   

 Planet Earth turns her face toward the glory of her star again,  She circles round, just as we do,  and we turn with her, every  creature held  within her fragile, azure skin.   May the Light bless you, and Shine in your life.

Winter Solstice, Willits Community (2012) Photo courtesy JJ Idarius & Ann Waters

  

  Happy Solstice!

I pledge allegiance

to the soil of Turtle Island,

and to the beings

who thereon dwell

one ecosystem in diversity

under the sun

With joyful

interpenetration for all.

Gary Snyder

Winter Solstice, Willits Community (2012) Photo courtesy JJ Idarius & Ann Waters

"To go in the dark with a light
is to know the light. 

To know the dark, go dark.
 Go without sight, and find
 that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
 and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings."

Wendell Berry

Winter Solstice inside Newgrange

SWEET DARKNESS
 

When your eyes are tired
the world is  tired also.
When your vision has gone
no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes to recognize its own.

There you can be sure you are not beyond love.
The dark will be your womb tonight.
The night will give you a horizon further than you can see.

You must learn one thing:
the world was made to be free in.
Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness
and the sweet confinement of your aloneness
to learn

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you.

David Whyte

Photo by NASA

Telling the Trees: Wassailing

In a previous post I shared the practice of "telling the bees" - here's another old custom along the same line, which is the practice of "telling the trees" at the Solstice celebrations, in essence, thanking them for their bounty and generosity, and sharing the celebration with them.

I love that!  

Although Wassail is popularly a spiced cider drink, often with brandy added and served hot, originally it meant the Yuletide custom of  singing to the trees, in particular, the orchard of apple trees.  The spiced cider also was offered in ancient honor to the trees for their generosity, and around the time of the Solstice, wassailers would prepare  traditional wassail – soaking pieces of bread, cake or toast in it – and travel from apple orchard to apple orchard singing and talking to the trees, in order to ensure a good harvest for the coming year.  Wassail-soaked pieces of bread or toast were then buried at the trees’ roots or hung in the trees’ branches to appease the tree spirits and feed them well until the next harvest.

Like the Romans'  offerings and small farm shrines dedicated  to the "Numina", the spirits of place that assisted them with their crops and orchards (the indigenous Roman Goddess Pomona, whose name meant "apple",  originated as a Numen), this custom, which is still practiced with a lot of good cheer  in some rural areas of  England, reflects that ancient pagan sense of "reciprocity" with an intelligent, spiritually  inhabited natural world.

I read that our habit of "toasting" may go back to Wassail revelries.  "Waes hael"  revelers would say,  from the Old English term  meaning "be well".  Eventually  "wassail" referred less to the greeting and more to the drink.The contents of the Wassail bowl varied, but a popular one was known as 'lambs wool'. It consisted of hot ale, roasted crab apples, sugar, spices, eggs, and cream served with little pieces of toast. It was the toast floating on the top that made it look like lamb's wool.  The toast that was traditionally floated atop the wassail eventually became our "toast" -  when you hold up your glass and announce, “Let’s have a toast,”  or  ”I’ll toast to that,” you’re remembering this very old ritual of floating a bit of toast in spiced ale or mulled wine or wassail in celebration.

Wassailing – visiting neighbors (and much appreciated, friendly trees), singing carols and sharing warmed drink – is a tradition related to the Winter Solstice with ancient roots indeed.

 I found a good Wassail recipe, which I've taken the liberty of sharing at the end of this post.  I don't know if I'll be going out to sing to the Saguaros  this Solstice, but who knows what I might end up doing if I drink enough Wassail with brandy.    Huzzah!  Happy Wassailing!

Photo by Martin Beebee

 Apple Tree Wassailing Chants and Rhymes

Compiled in The Stations of the Sun by Ronald Hutton

From the South Hams of Devon, recorded 1871: 

Here's to thee, old apple tree,
Whence thou mayst bud
And whence thou mayst blow!
And whence thou mayst bear apples enow!
Hats full! Caps full!
Bushel--bushel--sacks full,
And my pockets full too! Huzza!

From Cornworthy, Devon, recorded 1805:

Huzza, Huzza, in our good town
The bread shall be white, and the liquor be brown
So here my old fellow I drink to thee
And the very health of each other tree.
Well may ye blow, well may ye bear
Blossom and fruit both apple and pear.
So that every bough and every twig
May bend with a burden both fair and big
May ye bear us and yield us fruit such a stores
That the bags and chambers and house run o'er.

 

http://www.aspicyperspective.com/2013/09/wassail-recipe.html

Yield: 10-12 servings,  Prep Time: 5 minutes, Cook Time: 4 hours

Wassail Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 gallon Musselman's Apple Cider
• 4 cups orange juice
• 4 hibiscus tea bags
• 10 cinnamon sticks
• 1 tsp. whole cloves
• 1 Tb. juniper berries
• 1 1/2 inch piece of fresh ginger, cut into slices
• 1 apple, sliced into rounds
• 1 orange, sliced into rounds

Directions:

1. Place all the ingredients in a slow cooker and cover.
2. Turn the slow cooker on high heat and cook for 3-4 hours, until the color has darkened and the fruit is soft. Remove the tea bags and serve hot.

Santa Claus, Father Christmas and.........Odin?

Odin on his 8 legged horse (Image source:   http://www.designboom.com/design/santa-claus-changing-design/)

Yule   The Winter Solstice has been celebrated since time immemorial, and in the  cold Nordic countries, where the return of the Sun's life giving warmth is of particular concern, there is evidence that it's been celebrated since the time of the Megalith builders and before.  Yule/Jól was was probably connected to the full moon nearest the winter solstice. 

Santa with his flying Reindeer

According to Wikipedia: 

Yule or Yuletide ("Yule time") is a religious festival observed by the historical Germanic peoples, later being absorbed into and equated with the Christian festival of Christmas. The earliest references to Yule are by way of indigenous Germanic month names (Ærra Jéola (Before Yule) or Jiuli and Æftera Jéola (After Yule). Scholars have connected the celebration to the Wild Hunt, the god Odin and the pagan Anglo-Saxon Modranicht.    Yule is also used to a lesser extent in English-speaking countries to refer to Christmas. Customs such as the Yule log, Yule goat, Yule boar, Yule singing, and others stem from Yule or Yuletide ("Yule time"). 

Yule is the modern English representative of the Old English words ġéol or ġéohol and ġéola or ġéoli, with the former indicating the 12-day festival of "Yule" (later: "Christmastime") and the latter indicating the month of "Yule", whereby ǽrra ġéola referred to the period before the Yule festival (December) and æftera ġéola referred to the period after Yule (January). Both words are thought to be derived from Common Germanic *jeχʷla-, and are cognate with Gothic (fruma) jiuleis and Old Norse.   The word is attested in an explicitly pre-Christian context primarily in Old Norse.

 Among many others  the long-bearded god Odin bears the names jólfaðr (Old Norse 'Yule father') and jólnir (Old Norse 'the Yule one'). ^"

 The  Yule Log

The origins of  the Nordic Yule go back to a feast to honor the Norse God Odin, who among other things was the jolly  God of Intoxicating Drink. The custom of  the Yule Log or Yule Tree  emerged from this winter festival as well.  

The custom of Yule log varies from region to region.  It's good to remember the primal importance of the gift of warmth and of fire to early people living in the cold North, the "flame at the Hearth" for ancient families.  The Log may have originally been a large tree (Christmas Trees)  brought to the house with great ceremony. 

On Christmas, people light the Yule log placed in the hearth.   The burning of the Yule Log brings good fortune for family and friends.   After Christmas celebrations, a piece of the Yule log is retained to relight next year along with next year's log.

Origins of Santa Claus 

"The appearance of Santa Claus or Father Christmas, whose day is 25th of December, owes much to Odin, the old blue-hooded, cloaked, white-bearded Gift bringer of the north, who rode the midwinter sky on his eight-footed steed Sleipnir, visiting his people with gifts. … Odin, transformed into Father Christmas, then Santa Claus, prospered with St Nicholas on the Christmas stage."

......Margaret Baker 

St.  Nicholas was a 4th-century Christian bishop from Lycia (now in Turkey), who was  known for his charity, and giving gifts to the poor. In one notable story, he met a pious but impoverished man who had three daughters. He presented them with dowries to save them from a life of prostitution. In most traditional Iconic images,  St. Nicholas is portrayed as a bearded bishop, wearing clerical robes, an important patron saint of  children, the poor, and prostitutes.

So few people know that Santa Claus is a blend of an early Christian saint living in Turkey (Saint Nickolaus)  and the Norse god Odin, with a few other influence thrown in over the ages. But I guess that would take away the fun............

The other mythos from which Santa Claus derives is much earlier,  Odin, the ruler of Asgard.    Odin was often depicted as leading a hunting party through the skies, during which he rode his eight-legged horse, Sleipnir. In the 13th-century Poetic Edda, Sleipnir is described as being able to leap great distances, which some scholars have compared to the legends of Santa's reindeer (and, of course, the Edda are from Finland, which once abounded with reindeer). Odin was portrayed as an old man with a long, white beard. 

Odin (1886) by Georg von Rosen

I read that during the winter, in some pagan folklore, children would place their  boots near the chimney (and in the cold of a Nordic winter, it's a good place to put them), filling them with carrots or straw as a gift for Sleipnir. When Odin flew by, he rewarded the little ones by leaving gifts in their boots. Like traditions of the "Green Man" in England, in rural areas of Germanic countries  this practice survived despite the adoption of Christianity. As a result,  gift-giving became associated with St. Nicholas rather than the earlier Pagan god Odin.  Only now we hang stockings by the chimney, and leave cake and brandy rather than carrots and straw.