Solstice 2004

Yule

© Bryan Zepp Jamieson
12/21/04

The word “yule,” like the word “dog,” is so old that nobody really knows where it came from. In Iran, they have the word “Yalda” for their winter solstice, and if you squint and play it at 78 rpm, it looks and sounds a little bit like “yule.” The Chinese have a winterfest called Dong Zhi, and the feast itself is called Ju Dong, which could be pronounced “you tung.”

Well maybe the Chinese link is a bit of a stretch. For that matter, any competent linguist got to the bit about Iran’s solstice and stopped reading in disgust.

OK, the word is pretty unique.

But the holiday isn’t. I was a bit surprised to learn that it’s observed in India, even in the equatorial parts, where the difference in sun rise and sun set is only a minute or two from what it is at the summer solstice. The sun is deep in the southern sky on that date.

I can always tell when solstice is coming because the newspapers fill up with mopes from Christians about how the heathens have all appropriated Christmas. You know: all that biblical stuff like putting lights on pine trees and making wreaths and celebrating it in December (Latin for “tenth month,” which just goes to show something or other). Basically, the early Christians grabbed the existing holiday, filed off the serial numbers, and started accusing everyone else of stealing it.

One thing I discovered that I thought was pretty neat. Hanukkah is always celebrated on 25th of Kislev. The Hebrew calendar is lunar based, which means 13 months, which move around a bit in relation to the solar calendar. But each month begins with the new moon, which means Hanukkah always begins three days before the new moon immediately prior to the Winter Solstice. Winter Solstice is seen as the longest night; Hanukkah marks the DARKEST nights. Maybe that’s where the phrase “it’s always darkest before the dawn” comes from. Or maybe “Tis better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.”

And yes, Hanukkah is always on the 25th of the month of the winter solstice. I suppose the Christians swiped THAT, too. Geeze. Next thing you know, they’ll make off with the spring equinox celebration of
oester…

Still, the Christians were smart, and pilfered the elements that captured the essence of the solstice: the lights, the fires, the feasts, the giving of gifts or simple acts of generosity and charity. Those are all elements of the solstice, and like the lighting of the candles at Hanukkah and the cymbals and feasts of Yalda, it’s a warding off of the dark, a repudiation of the night. It’s a turning from the cold and the emptiness and an embracing of the hope of the return of light and warmth.

Why do we need solstice?

On a late December night, drive to a remote place, well away from all cities. Montana or North Dakota are good, northern Quebec or Scandinavia are better. Get out of your car and walk about a half mile from it, or at least out of sight of it.

It is bitter cold. Even with a muffler, it hurts to breathe, your eyelids feel a bit sticky. Even with gloves and warm socks and boots, your hands and feet feel the chill working in. The air, impossibly dry,
has a faint gunmetal scent to it.

It’s just you, snow gleaming faintly in the starlight, the great wheel of the stars, impossibly numerous and bright, punctuated by the trees. The snow is white and hard and looks like it will lay there forever.

It is very still. There are no rustle of leaves, no faint forest sounds. All you hear is your own breathing, and the faint squeak of the snow as you move your feet.

You know, in your heart, that this is a place where humans can only visit. No human can live here, out under the indifferent stars, in the grip of the deep coldness and the dark. If you had no car to return to, and if the sun were not to rise in a few hours, you would surely die here.

Tarry, and you will recognize the rarity of warmth, and light, and life. The universe is bleak, empty and cold, and our little enclave, small and easily lost in the vastness of the universe, forms our own response to the cold and the dark.

Winter equinox is when the earth bows to the entropy of the universe.

It is a terrifying, lonely time, this moment of vasty stygian gloom. Stare into the long dark cold of the night, and remember Nietzsche.

It is the moment when you recognize that death is more than the ending of life, but is the iron fist of the universe that smashes our dreams and our hopes and our petty little gods and magicks.

But the solstice is the beginning of the end for the dark. “E’en victors by victory are undone.” At its moment of greatest power, the dark begins its inevitable retreat before the return of light, of movement, of life.

Of hope.

The snow will melt. Leaves will bud on the trees. In six short months, lovers will walk through a gentle meadow in this spot, caressed by warm breezes, sung to by millions of insects and small, furtive creatures in the wood, beneath a gentle night sky made slightly pearly by the afterglow of the long, late twilight.

And that cold, scary night will be six months, a lifetime, a universe away.

That is the promise of solstice. That is why we light our candles and burn our yule logs and celebrate miracles and harvests to come and the return of the night.

That is what gives us the courage to face the longest, coldest, darkest night of the year.

We light our candles.

And we hope.

Happy Solstice.

Don’t lose hope. Never lose hope.