Winter Solstice and a Birthday Approaches

Dragon Mood? -- revelling in the season

I've got Christmas music on this morning. I grew up on Mantovani and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir playing in my parents' six-foot long, 60's-style stereo cabinet. For me, however, it's Cocktail Lounge and Tejano Country music this frigid morning.

And I'm preparing for the Winter Solstice and the celebration of the baby Jesus' birth.

This year, the winter solstice will occur at 12:42 UT (Universal Time -- more commonly known as Greenwich Mean Time) on December 21st. If my calculations are correct, that is 7:42 am EST for us folks here in the Mitten State. (See this site.) I just learned this morning that solstice means "standing-still-sun." Cool, huh?



At the Candlegrove site, the author says, "Many, many cultures the world over perform solstice ceremonies. At their root: an ancient fear that the failing light would never return unless humans intervened with anxious vigil or antic celebration."

Whch is deplorable to say the least. Even before Christianity, people were gripped by fear. Fear of a disappearing sun. Fear of the cold. Fear for their survival. My take: the early shapers of Christianity jumped on the fear bandwagon, because that was what people were used to, and looky there, it worked.

And then we have the baby Jesus' birthday celebration. My earliest memories of December, of winter, are focused entirely around Christmas (the Christ-Mass, the worship of the Messiah, the Anointed One). I just read somewhere here recently how powerful the symbols of Christmas are. Where was that? Ah, yes, here.

...the Nativity narratives are the subject of ongoing scholarly debate over their historical accuracy, their theological meaning and whether some of the central images and words of the Christian religion owe as much to the pagan culture of the Roman Empire as they do to apostolic revelation.

...The power of the Nativity message—that a helpless child is in fact a heavenly king—lies in its consistent pattern of reversal, of making the weak strong, the humble mighty. The stable, the manger and the swaddling of Jesus are such theological touches.

Yes, these are powerful images in the story of Jesus' birth: the shocking appearance of angels, guiding stars in the sky, humble people exalted, the manger scene replete with donkeys and cows, the lowly shepherds, the Wise Men seeking out a baby, a frightening getaway to Egypt. The cynical part of me thinks that Hollywood screenwriters could never sell such an outlandish story.

And yet, these are part and parcel of me and my childhood memories.

Here's a cool quote regarding Christmas:

"Shall we liken Christmas to the web in a loom? There are many weavers, who work into the pattern the experience of their lives. When one generation goes, another comes to take up the weft where it has been dropped. The pattern changes as the mind changes, yet never begins quite anew. At first, we are not sure that we discern the pattern, but at last we see that, unknown to the weavers themselves, something has taken shape before our eyes, and that they have made something very beautiful, something which compels our understanding."
--Earl W. Count, "4,000 Years of Christmas"

[The picture above was taken the morning of the 2000 Winter Solstice near Ames, Iowa. The halo is made by sunlight shining through millions of ice crystals.]