Post by WinterWitch on Dec 18, 2004 14:18:44 GMT -5
Next Tuesday is the Winter Solstice, and I am looking forward to it.
While the significance of this event has been eclipsed by Christmas
and electricity in recent millennia, its roots bear illuminating.
I might give the Winter Solstice less thought were it not for time
spent as a navigator in the pre-Global-Positioning-System Navy. In
that work, the motions of our own planet within the celestial dome
were of daily interest. Some of that interest remains, of course, but
simply living in the North makes me appreciate the ages-old
significance of Dec. 21. There are differences between the tides of
Yule and Christmas, you know, or at least there used to be.
During our over-commercialized holidays, when it is easy to lose our
way, we can all take some solace in The Good Book. I am referring, of
course, to that weighty volume sought by so many mariners in need of
guidance, Nathaniel Bowditch's tome, the "American Practical Navigator."
The winter solstice occurs on the Dec. 21 and is the first official
day of winter. Webster's New World Dictionary defines winter simply as
"cold season, frosty weather . . . Christmastime." But look up winter
in "American Practical Navigator," or in Elbert S. Maloney's equally
massive and enlightening "Dutton's Navigation and Piloting," and you
begin to get the centuries-old big picture.
Solstice means something close to "sun standing still" in Latin, and
that hints at what part of this whole winter-holiday thing is all about.
We should all know by now that the winter and summer solstices occur
because our planet spins on a tilting axis (from zero to 23.5 degrees,
exactly). During a single orbit around the sun upon this lolling axis,
taking one year, the great dome of the northern hemisphere leans at
different times toward the sun or away from it, or is in a sort of
neutral and perfectly vertical attitude in between.
When the North Pole is inclined toward the sun, as it is during the
summer months, we get the maximum amounts of heat and light. It is as
if we are facing a fireplace and leaning toward it. The summer
solstice occurs on June 21 or June 22 and represents the moment of
maximum inclination toward our star. Then the earth's axis begins to
gradually lean back away from the sun, and daylight grows shorter and
temperatures cool north of the equator.
Halfway betwixt the solstices are the equinoxes. Equinox is Latin for
"equal-night." Autumnal equinox is the moment each autumn when we are
tilting neither toward the sun nor away from it, and daylight and
darkness are of equal parts. The same vertical midway point between
solstices exists in spring – vernal equinox.
The winter solstice occurs when the North Pole is at its maximum
declination away from the sun. We, as a hemisphere, will have rocked
back from the sun as far as our celestial rocker will allow, and will
then begin inching toward brighter times.
How ancient peoples with no more technology than the lever, fulcrum,
and wheel figured this out with any exactitude is beyond me, but they
did. According to Barbara Clooney's "The Story of Christmas," many
different winter festivals were in full swing centuries before the
birth of Christ (which probably occurred in September, according to
some historians). These celebrations varied from one hairy pagan tribe
to another, but all shared two common traits: The return of light was
the theme and the winter solstice was the approximate date of the party.
It is from these ancient rites that some of our own best-known
Christmastime rituals have emerged. The Romans, for example, had an
annual mid-December festival called Saturnalia, in which they
decorated their houses and temples with, lo and behold, evergreen
boughs and holly branches. The pagans of northern Europe had a
mid-December feast called Yule. They blessed and burned a big log that
symbolized the return of the sun and the gradual lengthening of
daylight hours each day.
The burning of Yule logs remains a part of some northern Europeans'
Christmas celebrations today, just as the lighting of torches,
bonfires, old boats, fireworks, and many other incendiary devices,
still mark the Christmases of central and southern Europe.
It wasn't until at least a half-century after the birth of Christ that
Christians, as if to say "If you can't beat `em, join `em," decided to
celebrate his birthday at the same time as these entrenched pagan
winter festivals so soaked in light, wine, and barley malt.
So our winter holidays have their roots in the sky and their branches
in both the lofty Christian and earthly pagan spheres.
Happy solstice.
Nicholas Brown
www.seacoastonline.com/news/12182004/col_wate/54688.htm
Enjoy
Sage
While the significance of this event has been eclipsed by Christmas
and electricity in recent millennia, its roots bear illuminating.
I might give the Winter Solstice less thought were it not for time
spent as a navigator in the pre-Global-Positioning-System Navy. In
that work, the motions of our own planet within the celestial dome
were of daily interest. Some of that interest remains, of course, but
simply living in the North makes me appreciate the ages-old
significance of Dec. 21. There are differences between the tides of
Yule and Christmas, you know, or at least there used to be.
During our over-commercialized holidays, when it is easy to lose our
way, we can all take some solace in The Good Book. I am referring, of
course, to that weighty volume sought by so many mariners in need of
guidance, Nathaniel Bowditch's tome, the "American Practical Navigator."
The winter solstice occurs on the Dec. 21 and is the first official
day of winter. Webster's New World Dictionary defines winter simply as
"cold season, frosty weather . . . Christmastime." But look up winter
in "American Practical Navigator," or in Elbert S. Maloney's equally
massive and enlightening "Dutton's Navigation and Piloting," and you
begin to get the centuries-old big picture.
Solstice means something close to "sun standing still" in Latin, and
that hints at what part of this whole winter-holiday thing is all about.
We should all know by now that the winter and summer solstices occur
because our planet spins on a tilting axis (from zero to 23.5 degrees,
exactly). During a single orbit around the sun upon this lolling axis,
taking one year, the great dome of the northern hemisphere leans at
different times toward the sun or away from it, or is in a sort of
neutral and perfectly vertical attitude in between.
When the North Pole is inclined toward the sun, as it is during the
summer months, we get the maximum amounts of heat and light. It is as
if we are facing a fireplace and leaning toward it. The summer
solstice occurs on June 21 or June 22 and represents the moment of
maximum inclination toward our star. Then the earth's axis begins to
gradually lean back away from the sun, and daylight grows shorter and
temperatures cool north of the equator.
Halfway betwixt the solstices are the equinoxes. Equinox is Latin for
"equal-night." Autumnal equinox is the moment each autumn when we are
tilting neither toward the sun nor away from it, and daylight and
darkness are of equal parts. The same vertical midway point between
solstices exists in spring – vernal equinox.
The winter solstice occurs when the North Pole is at its maximum
declination away from the sun. We, as a hemisphere, will have rocked
back from the sun as far as our celestial rocker will allow, and will
then begin inching toward brighter times.
How ancient peoples with no more technology than the lever, fulcrum,
and wheel figured this out with any exactitude is beyond me, but they
did. According to Barbara Clooney's "The Story of Christmas," many
different winter festivals were in full swing centuries before the
birth of Christ (which probably occurred in September, according to
some historians). These celebrations varied from one hairy pagan tribe
to another, but all shared two common traits: The return of light was
the theme and the winter solstice was the approximate date of the party.
It is from these ancient rites that some of our own best-known
Christmastime rituals have emerged. The Romans, for example, had an
annual mid-December festival called Saturnalia, in which they
decorated their houses and temples with, lo and behold, evergreen
boughs and holly branches. The pagans of northern Europe had a
mid-December feast called Yule. They blessed and burned a big log that
symbolized the return of the sun and the gradual lengthening of
daylight hours each day.
The burning of Yule logs remains a part of some northern Europeans'
Christmas celebrations today, just as the lighting of torches,
bonfires, old boats, fireworks, and many other incendiary devices,
still mark the Christmases of central and southern Europe.
It wasn't until at least a half-century after the birth of Christ that
Christians, as if to say "If you can't beat `em, join `em," decided to
celebrate his birthday at the same time as these entrenched pagan
winter festivals so soaked in light, wine, and barley malt.
So our winter holidays have their roots in the sky and their branches
in both the lofty Christian and earthly pagan spheres.
Happy solstice.
Nicholas Brown
www.seacoastonline.com/news/12182004/col_wate/54688.htm
Enjoy
Sage