This is the forty-fifth issue of my free newsletter. Your feedback is most welcome!
EARTH & US: Solstice Soul Stirring
“We live in a kind of dark age, craftily lit with synthetic light, so no one can tell how dark it has really gotten.”
– Martin Prechtel, Secrets of the Talking Jaguar
Honoring the Light
It is the great yearning of humankind for light which led the ancients to celebrate, all over the world, the shortest day of the year, with gratitude for the promise of the sun’s light returning. People knew well that without the return of warmer, longer days, they would freeze and starve. So, at dawn on winter solstice, 5000 years ago, a shaft of sunlight streamed into the central chamber of the massive stone structure called Newgrange in Ireland. Centuries later, Stonehenge was created to honor the sun on this day as well.
The Pueblo, Hopi, Chumash, and other Native American peoples celebrated the Solstice. Ancient Iranians burned fires through the night. Ancient Pakistan, Tibet, Ukraine, and China all have had solstice rituals. The Incas honored the sun god, Wiracocha. In many traditions, Solstice marked the death of the old sun, and birth of the new. The Romans called the Solstice the “Birthday of the Unconquered Sun,” honoring Appolo, Dionysius, Helios, Horus, Mithra, Perseus, and Theseus (all god-like men who acted as saviors). The Roman feast days of Saturn, known as “Saturnalia,” were marked with lamps kept burning to ward off spirits of darkness. Evergreens, symbolizing life’s continuity, were used to decorate homes and temples. “Yule” was the Scandinavian winter festival, with burning yule logs, drinking of mead and listening to minstrels sing legends. Three days before Yule is a magical time of transformation; the Elder and Birch trees guard the entrance to the underworld, and the Sun God journeys through the underworld to learn the secrets of death and life.
In ancient Egypt, Osiris was said to have died on December 21, but at midnight, the priests called out, “The Virgin has brought forth! The light is waxing.” And the birth of a baby boy was celebrated. Is this not amazingly similar to the Christmas story? Jesus, whose birth was heralded by a star shining in the dark night, was called the Light of the World. In Judaism, the Hanukah festival of lights also coincides with this time of the year, celebrating the war fought by the Maccabees for religious freedom. The menorah was miraculous in that it burned for eight days on one day’s oil supply.
In the light of gratitude
I believe that with the current orgy of fossil fuel use, light (as well as heat, and energy) has been taken for granted. Christmas displays of lighted trees and homes can be beautiful, but to someone in the third world living on a dollar a day, they would look profligate. We lack the reverence and gratitude for light which we might experience if we were using candles and wood fires that we made with our own hands. In the United States, we live in a dazzling illusion of abundance, caused in part by our government’s policies (subsidizing all forms of oil, gas, coal, and nuclear energy and encouraging more use) and partly by our own lack of awareness, consumer attitudes, and denial. It is not easy to hold in mind that for us to turn on the light switch or boot up the computer, a mountain top in the Southern Appalachians is being blasted off to get the coal; or that for us to travel in cars and airplanes, war is being fought in Iraq.
We have also—in large part—substituted the abundance of fossil-fueled light and energy for the light and warmth of unconditional love, friendship, and spirituality. And yet, that is what we humans truly long for, I think. Christmas gift-giving, which fuels the biggest shopping craze of the year, is the materialistic manifestation of the pure impulse to give from the heart. No material gift can match the light in the eyes of a child who feels his parents’ loving attention, or the radiant faces of a chorus singing “Hallelujah!” The feeling of awe and wonder at seeing the dawn’s light, or the rainbow next to a mountain waterfall, is a gift from spirit.
Lighting the way forward
Let us develop a fiery passion for preserving the bright beauty of creation by finding and implementing ingenious solutions to the linked problems of fossil fuel scarcity, global warming, and environmental degradation. In the absence of leadership from the president, mayors all over the country have been signing and beginning to implement the Kyoto protocols in their cities. Asheville recently became the fourth city in North Carolina to sign! Everyone can play a role in asking their mayors to follow suit, and educating their communities about the steps that government, businesses, and individuals can take to cut our fossil fuel use through conservation and renewable energy.
As we decrease consumption of oil, gas, coal or nuclear energy through conservation and renewables, we are creating jobs, clearing the air so fewer children and adults suffer from asthma, and cutting greenhouse gases so we can avoid more Hurricane Katrinas. With compact fluorescent bulbs, locally grown organic food, energy efficient cars and appliances, building insulation, and biodiesel, we can avert wars for oil in the middle East and drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge.
May you experience ever more joy, wonder, and gratitude for the light of the world. May we all bring forth our own radiance, so sorely needed to help light up our world. Have a soul-stirring Solstice!
Cathy Holt
"One kind word can warm three winter months."
- Japanese Proverb
www.thekindnesscampaign.org
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