It might be the coffee talking this morning but this Holiday Season I've
been sensing a certain open-mindedness from secular-leaning folks towards
Soltice/Yule over the orgiastic shopping frenzy that has become Christmas. Maybe
it's the invite I received for a "Solstice Bliss" party from
some friends who aren't really Pagan but are definitely not Christian, maybe
it's my own Atheist father referring to the festive lights around his house as
"Soltice" lights, or maybe the American public at large is realizing
the two faces of Christmas ("Step on a fellow shopper's face and grab a flat screen
at Walmart" OR "Celebrate the birth of little baby Jesus and kneel before God") have
gotten a bit extreme.
Okay, clearly I'm projecting on that last part but still,
there's something to be said for Pagans making an argument towards Atheists, Agnostics, and secular New Agey types in favor of the Yule over what any basic
world history course would show is a misappropriated monotheistic holiday.
It bears repeating that Soltice or "Yule" predates Christmas the way the Beatles predate the Monkeys, and was universally celebrated as a seasonal holiday for cultures across the globe. That science backs up the cultural significance of the shortest day/longest night of the year as a real point in time and space within the Earth's rotation around the sun, only bolsters the idea that maybe, just maybe, it's time the word "Solstice" was resurrected from our collective vocabulary.
It bears repeating that Soltice or "Yule" predates Christmas the way the Beatles predate the Monkeys, and was universally celebrated as a seasonal holiday for cultures across the globe. That science backs up the cultural significance of the shortest day/longest night of the year as a real point in time and space within the Earth's rotation around the sun, only bolsters the idea that maybe, just maybe, it's time the word "Solstice" was resurrected from our collective vocabulary.
This is not to eschew the practices around Christmas. For
years, my family has happily decorated our Solstice tree, and re-appropriated
Christmas songs by simply inserting "Solstice" for
"Christmas" or "Gods" over "God". (Cuz'
seriously, the melodies sung at this time of year are awesome).
A friend of mine who identifies as a Jewish-Atheist and doesn't celebrate Christmas rolls her eyes at this, "It's a Christmas tree," she insists, and to be fair, she has a point. Even though the contemporary "Christmas tree" was once derided and even banned as a Pagan practice in early 19th century America, it's definition clearly has changed. My argument is simply, we can change it back. Why? Because it was never a symbol for Christians to appropriate in the first place.
This is all to say, despite it's contemporary secular undertones, celebrating Christmas in name is indeed to celebrate a Christian holiday - This is fine if you self-identify as Christian, but if you don't, there's a rose by another name that smells just as sweet. This year I'm crafting "Saturnalia" Solstice ornaments for friends, partly as a joke, partly because the aforementioned Roman holiday is yet another iteration of the Solstice, one that honors the agricultural deity of Saturn, and by extension, our ability to survive the cold unproductive winter months by storing grains, which is, one could argue, the very foundation of modern civilization.
A friend of mine who identifies as a Jewish-Atheist and doesn't celebrate Christmas rolls her eyes at this, "It's a Christmas tree," she insists, and to be fair, she has a point. Even though the contemporary "Christmas tree" was once derided and even banned as a Pagan practice in early 19th century America, it's definition clearly has changed. My argument is simply, we can change it back. Why? Because it was never a symbol for Christians to appropriate in the first place.
This is all to say, despite it's contemporary secular undertones, celebrating Christmas in name is indeed to celebrate a Christian holiday - This is fine if you self-identify as Christian, but if you don't, there's a rose by another name that smells just as sweet. This year I'm crafting "Saturnalia" Solstice ornaments for friends, partly as a joke, partly because the aforementioned Roman holiday is yet another iteration of the Solstice, one that honors the agricultural deity of Saturn, and by extension, our ability to survive the cold unproductive winter months by storing grains, which is, one could argue, the very foundation of modern civilization.
Come Solstice morning, the fam and I will do our annual welcoming of the sunrise with drums, flutes, and perhaps a ukelele version of "Here Comes the Sun". Silly?
Perhaps. But no more silly than an old fat man in an elf costume going across
the world in one night to deliver toys, all in the name of little baby Jesus. On that note, Pagans and secular folks alike are on common ground when we celebrate the return of the Sun, as opposed to the "son" - cuz' like George Harrison sang, "I feel the ice is slowly melting" between us, and most certainly, "it seems like years since [we've] been here."
