Winter Solstice: let there be light

The midwinter day has been celebrated for thousands of years. In this essay I explore the core meaning of the traditions surrounding the shortest day of the year.

The light is dwindling in the Northern Hemisphere as we are reaching the depth of the dark part of the year. Winter days tend to be hard on all of us, whether we are in tune with the resting and nesting that post-Samhain time offers us or not. Come to think of it, it makes all the more sense that we have a multitude of diverse traditions that add light and cheer to our lives in the wintertime: Christmas Day, 8-day Hannukah, Yule and 12-day Yuletide. In distant and not-so-distant past it was roman Saturnalia or Inca’s Inti Raymi (the Festival of the Sun) that took place around the Winter Solstice in their respective hemispheres. And the list goes on.

After realizing the deeper meaning of the ages-old traditions surrounding the shortest day of the year, I no longer shake my head in disapproval when, at the beginning of November, I already see Christmas lights and decorations in European shops and cafes, or when I hear merry songs filling radio stations and playlists, making the most of their once in a year moment. I smile and thank humanity for coming up with these ways to get us through the dark and, for many of us, cold days. May there be light!

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Celestial events and architecture.

Our ancestors were intricately attuned to the cycles of the world around them – not only to the earthly but also to the astronomical ones. The proofs of that are scattered all over the planet, silently standing there, watching the time pass, and revealing their deliberate alignment with the Sun a few times a year, in wordless praise to the mastery of those who built them.

Specific stones at Stonehenge in England frame the sunrise on the Summer Solstice and the sunset on the Winter Solstice. Evidently, the people back then had extensive astronomical knowledge and deemed those two celestial events significant enough to erect a whole megalithic site in perfect alignment with solstices. Besides, our ancestors also saw a special meaning in the movements of the Sun. Just imagine: people would gather at Stonehenge on Summer Solstice to watch the dawn of the longest day through the stony frame. Six months later, on midwinter day, they would bid farewell to the Sun as it descends into the Underworld and gives the stage to the longest night of the year.

All the way across the ocean, Incas built the Temple of the Sun in the now renowned Machu Picchu. As the name suggests, the Temple was dedicated to the star without which life on Earth as we know it would cease to exist. To celebrate the rebirth of the Sun on the Winter Solstice – the 21st of June in the Southern Hemisphere – the Temple was aligned with the sunrise. Even today those willing to travel to Machu Picchu on midwinter day, have a chance to witness the first beam of sunlight reach from behind the majestic mountains, shine through a window, and fall right onto a stone altar of the Temple.

Ancient Egyptians famously worshipped Sun and were well aware of astronomical events connected to its passage across the sky. Not surprisingly, there is more than one site in Egypt that stands in alignment with solstices.
For example, to this day, hundreds of people gather in Karnak on the Winter Solstice to see how the sun floods the main aisle of the Principe of Amun-Re (Sun-God) at the dawn. I have shivers running down my spine when I imagine what it might feel like to stand there when the first sunlight pours right into the passage from the east, to witness the Sun rise just as the people long-gone had done for thousands of years before me.

Midwinter in stories.

Not only did our ancestors build massive sites to mark the solstices, but they also told and enacted stories that held the meaning of the celestial events.

In Celtic pagan traditions, the yearly cycle, the Wheel, is personified by two brothers and rivals – the Oak King, who is ruling during the light part of the year, and the Holly King, who is in control at the time of the darker part.

There are varying views on when the battles of the kings take place: on Equinoxes or Solstices. I personally prefer the storyline where the Oak King loses the battle to his brother, the Holly King, on the Autumn Equinox. After that, Oak King’s powers are decreasing, as if he is dying, while his brother reigns over the dark part of the year. But on Winter Solstice the Oak King – the Sun – is reborn. From that point on, the king of the Waxing Year grows and regains his strength, and so does the light day. Come the Spring Equinox, the brothers meet in battle again: this time, the Oak King is strong and beats the Holly King, taking the year over from him.

And just like that, the Wheel keeps turning.

How old are our modern Christmas customs?

Even if you have never given much thought to Winter Solstice or wondered why our ancestors celebrated the rebirth of the Sun and the turn of the year towards the light part of it, the chances are extremely high that you have participated in the old customs nevertheless.

The lively Roman festival called Saturnalia was dedicated to the harvest god Saturn. In the dreary and grey months of winter Romans would spend 7 days between the 17th and the 23rd of December feasting, drinking, merrymaking, gift-giving, and candle-lightning. Normality was overturned, lawlessness engulfed the cities. Slaves enjoyed temporary freedoms and were fed well by their masters. Soon after the end of Saturnalia, Romans would celebrate the Birth of the Invincible Sun (Dies Natalis Solis Invicti) on the 25th of December.
Parts of these traditions remind me of something... Don’t they for you?

The Christmas Tree is also an eons-old story: in various pagan traditions, evergreen boughs were used as decorations for homes around the time of Winter Solstice. They symbolized the life that goes on, even in the quietest, darkest of times.
As for the tree ornaments, there are different versions regarding what they meant to European pagans. The likely explanation that I’ve heard is that the pagans who worshipped nature brought evergreen trees into their homes and decorated them with fruits and bread so that the forest spirits could join in the merriment and warm up indoors for a bit.

The connecting thread underneath it all.

I would happily continue the discussion of the customs and traditions as I love both learning about them and sharing what I’ve discovered, but for the sake of keeping it short-ish, I would like to zoom out now and look at the bigger picture.

Living through the Winter Solstice was a significant event in the lives of the ancient people. With the harvest season being over, our ancestors ate what they had managed to grow and reap, which was not done at the same scale as we see today. Cold days also increased the risk of falling ill. You could not be sure that you were to see the next spring come.

To go through the longest night of the year was to metaphorically die, to see the world shrink to minimal aliveness, to be engulfed by darkness. But this story is as old as the world: after death, life comes. Every cycle – astronomical, seasonal, menstrual – is evidence of the ageless rhythm of Life-Death-Life that permeates all of existence.

And so, on the Winter Solstice, we celebrate the rebirth of the Sun and the return of the light.

And even though many of us do not feel that wintertime puts such a strain on our lives as we have learnt to, for example, grow and distribute food even off-season, the fact that we need Sun does not change. The simple knowing that as of this date the light day is going to slowly but surely increase makes us feel hopeful, even in our modern and increasingly disassociated from Nature cultures.

Getting practical:
attuning to this time of the year.

In my Autumn Equinox letter, I said that there are no right or wrong ways to celebrate the change of the seasons, the turn of the Wheel. Nature is our greatest teacher when it comes to attuning to the cycles: look around you, notice trends and patterns, see them as metaphors, and apply that to your own life.

Winters can be gruesome and even the man-made merriment of the celebrations can be taxing for our nervous systems and our bodies which long for rest and simple joys, not for buying-baking-decorating craze. The way we can stress ourselves out with pre-Christmas preparations is a perfect example of how anything can be a cure and a poison, depending on the dosage.

Personally, I see this time of the year as an opportunity to focus on the light. Literally speaking it can manifest in candles, fairy lights, wood burners’ fires – anything that shines in the midst of the long dark hours. Metaphorically, it is about the light we each carry inside of us. For some, it will mean tending to their own inner fire by giving themselves time to recharge. For others, it will be about sharing their warm steady light with others: that extra kindness that people show to each other around Christmas and New Year’s Day.

Perhaps because the weather is so harsh, we tend to soften towards others, as if to say: the world is not such a dark, hopeless place after all. And I believe we do it not so much for others but for our own sake, reminding ourselves: “There is goodness in the world because I can do good.”

All the beautiful customs and rituals aside, the most important thing we can do to celebrate Winter Solstice is to ask ourselves: how can I add light to the world? In deeds big and small.

And the secret is:

You can’t hold the lantern aloft without its light illuminating your path as well.

— Rebecca Beattie “The Wheel of the Year”

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Whatever you celebrate this year, may there be light!

Nika

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Thank you if you choose to do so. It means a lot!

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