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About Us
The Gift That Keeps on Giving!
People who care about things like science and philosophy have known for thousands of years the significance of the Winter Solstice. It marks the shortest day of the year, a symbolic death of the Sun and the beginning of its slow increase to summer strength. This is the time to make sure that you have enough of whatever you need to get you through the lean times and that theme carries through all human activities. In the past, this would be the time when farmers, hunters, people who fish, people who make things, and people who sell these things had the time to fix their tools and homes and places of business in preparation for the new season.
Not all cultures considered this the time of the New Year, however. But when the Ages of ignorance were wreaking havoc on western civilization, almost destroying it and causing problems that exist to this day, they started fooling around with calendars and, since they were often wrong, they ended up with a bunch of extra days at the end of the year before January 1st, and so the Saturnalia was born. An officially sanctified orgy of more than a week, that centuries later got hushed up and cleaned up, hidden under the myth and mystery of Christ's birth, Christ-mas. In fact, there's been a recent excavation in Rome that promises to put a date on the exact time when Christmas was born of the celebration of the birth and nurturing by a she-wolf of Romulus and twin brother Remus, the founders of the Roman State that became the Roman Empire. To read it, click here.
So when you feel that familiar odd feeling that time is out of joint every December, you're part of a tradition that stretches back thousands of years. The orgy of buying and eating and visiting and traveling and emotions and the inevitable let down when reality and work returns after the Holy-Days, which is what the Solstice is and always has been - it seems to be ingrained in western culture. I tear up every time I hear Silent Night and some of the other wonderful Christmas songs. I love Christmas and I love Hannukah, which is actually a celebration of the suicide martyrs of Israel, the Mackabees. Sigh.
But more than I love holidays and holy days, I love the people who celebrate and/or have them foisted on them - in other words, all of us! As the bible says, "The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath." Please have a safe, healthy, and restorative Solstice, Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanza and/or whatever other holy days you celebrate. We, the living, are all in this together. And love is, indeed, the goal of living and celebrating. Don't let anyone else's ideas, including mine, stop you from being who you are and celebrating and remembering and living creatively. Give the gift of your truth and wisdom to everyone you meet and every day, too. That is truly the gift that keeps on giving. |
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