It
feels like the days just can’t get any shorter, and it’s true. Today we
celebrate the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year. The Winter
Solstice officially arrived in Colorado at 10:11 am this morning, marking the
moment that the sun shines at its most southern point. To the delight of many
of us, this means that the days will start getting longer, however incrementally.
The
Winter Solstice is celebrated in many cultures around the world. It is a major
pagan festival with rituals of rebirth having been celebrated for thousands of
years. In the northern latitudes, midwinter's day has been an important time
for celebration throughout the ages. Nova Scotians celebrate the Winter
Solstice as Children's Day to honor their children and to bring warmth, light
and cheerfulness into the dark time of the year. In pagan Scandinavia the
winter festival was the yule (or juul). Great yule logs were
burned, and people drank mead around the bonfires listening to minstrel-poets
singing ancient legends. It was believed that the yule log had the magical
effect of helping the sun to shine more brightly.
The
romans called it Dies Natalis Invicti Solis, the Birthday of the
Unconquered Sun. The Roman midwinter holiday, Saturnalia, was both a gigantic
fair and a festival of the home. Riotous merry-making took place, and the halls
of houses were decked with boughs of laurel and evergreen trees. Lamps were
kept burning to ward off the spirits of darkness. Schools were closed, the army
rested, and no criminals were executed. Friends visited one another, bringing
good-luck gifts of fruit, cakes, candles, dolls, jewelry, and incense. Temples
were decorated with evergreens symbolizing life's continuity, and processions
of people with masked or blackened faces and fantastic hats danced through the
streets. The custom of mummers visiting their neighbors in costume is
still alive in Newfoundland, having descended from these Roman masked
processions.
In
2012, thousands of people showed up at Stonehenge for the Winter Solstice
celebrations because it was believed that the date marked the last day of the
Mayan calendar, signaling the end of the world. Well, the world did not end, nor
is it expected to end today. So whatever your beliefs, you might want to do a
little happy dance to celebrate the promise of longer and warmer days to come.
