The concept of a winter festival dates back before the
Romans and usually had more to do with the winter solstice than anything
resembling today’s religions, and evolved into a Christian holiday.
Today, if you look around, this holiday and festival period
has devolved back to a pagan party. Drive through the neighborhoods, walk
through shopping centers, and watch television, you will not see very much
religion. For that matter, most of the music you’ll hear will be winter
related, not Christ related despite the name, Christmas Holiday.
When the earliest people recognized the winter solstice as
being the day with the least amount of daylight, and that the following days’
light increased slightly one to the next, it was obviously party time. The next
solar year was under way, and they needed to celebrate that. It was a gradual
moving ahead, advancing toward the awakening with the arrival of the spring equinox.
Our most ancient ancestors lived by the solar year. They
planted, hunted, married, and bred their animals based on where the sun was in
the sky. Grand monuments exist even today to attest to that. Think Stonehenge,
and many traditional farmers around the world depend on the ancient solar year
knowledge.
But, let’s get back to the party thing. Norse, that is
Viking, invaders wee probably the last of the Europeans to continue the winter
solstice pagan rituals and brought many of those into their invaded lands.
Yuletide became Christmastide, for instance. The original Yule log and its
burning was pagan as was the hanging of evergreen wreaths.
The Roman church found that it was far easier to incorporate
pagan holidays into their religious program than to deny converts their pagan
holidays and festivals. Think Saturnalia for example. Whew.
Regardless of what it is you’re celebrating, on or about
December 21st, the world will welcome the winter solstice and six
weeks later the ground hog will tell us there will be another six weeks of
winter, and then six weeks later we will celebrate the spring equinox. Funny
how that works.
The idea of the days getting longer brought joy to the
so-called pagan world, and today, the period around the winter solstice brings
warm fuzzy feelings to businesses across this vast nation of ours.
Until next time, read good books and stay regular
Johnny Gunn
Will you join me on facebook from time to time?
Or Tweet with me, darlin’?
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