Naturalistic Paganism
Winter Solstice
The sun, nearing winter solstice, travels low across the sky in a multiple-exposure picture made in Maine in 2002.
PHOTOGRAPH BY ROBERT F. BUKATY, AP
For Neopagans in the Northern Hemisphere, the solstice is celebrated as Yule. This year, the date falls on December 21st. The precise date and time for the cross-quarter can be found at archaeoastronomy.com.
At the Winter Solstice, NaturalPantheist performs a ritual which begins with this prelude:
“As I stand here on this celebration of Yule, the sacred wheel of the year has turned once again and it is now midwinter. As my forebears did, I do now, and so may my descendants do in time to come. It is the Solstice, the longest night and shortest day. Today I celebrate the return of the Sun. Since the summer, it has gradually become colder and darker, but from this time forwards, the days shall get longer and lighter and warmer again. The Solar year has run its course and completed its cycle and a new year begins, bringing light, life and hope to the earth.”
He concludes with this poem:
When the earth is barren, the light is reborn.
When the animals sleep, the light is reborn.
When the leaves have all fallen, the light is reborn.
When the rivers are frozen, the light is reborn.
When the shadows grow long, the light is reborn.
When warmth has fled, the light is reborn.
In the darkest night, the light is reborn.
Glenys Livingstone of Pagaian transposes the solstice onto the birth of the universe itself. Her ritual script sees all lights extinguished and, after a time in the darkness, a fire is kindled with the following words:
“We recall our Beginnings – the Great Flaring Forth, and our Grandmother Supernova Tiamat – Goddess Mother of our Solar system, of our star the Sun. This is our Cosmic lineage. We are Gift of Tiamat – Goddess Mother supernova. Out of her stardust we are born. Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur, phosphorus and trace elements. We are Gift of Tiamat – out of her stardust we are born.”
Pagaian Winter Solstice video
Jon Cleland Host of the Naturalistic Paganism yahoo group celebrates the solstice with his family, including Yule log and sunrise viewing:
“A Yule log can be made and burned. This is done by selecting and cutting the log, then taking it inside for decoration. Kids can contribute by helping with the decorations. Some Pagans use the log as a stand for candles, and light the candles (especially for apartment dwellers, or those without a fireplace) on Solstice eve. Others actually burn the log on Solstice eve, lighting it with a small piece of the log from the previous year. More can be found on the web about the tradition of the Yule Log.
“A tradition practiced in my family, but not apparently very widespread, is to get up to welcome the sunrise on the morning of the Winter Solstice. This is often done from a location where the horizon can be seen, such as the shore of Lake Huron or Michigan. The weather is often cloudy, so knowing the exact minute of the sunrise is important. A short ritual can be done to greet the rising sun, and poems or readings can be read. Long rituals are not recommended due to the cold temperatures usually seen on the morning of Solstice (not to mention that long rituals aren’t fun for kids). After returning from that, the stockings are found to be filled, and presents appear. In the past they appeared under the Yule/Solstice tree, this year they appeared in the center of our stone circle outside.”
Meanwhile, those in the Southern Hemisphere experience this time as Midsummer.
The HPedia: HADD
Your help is needed! Please critique this entry from the HPedia: An encyclopedia of key concepts in Naturalistic Paganism. Please leave your constructive criticism in the comments below.
HADD is an acronym for “Hyperactive Agency Detection Device” or “Hypersensitive Agency Detection Device.” It is a common term in cognitive pscyhology, and points to a postulated preference of the human brain to see agents in the environment, even where there are none. Barrett proposes the brain has a module with such a preference, and it is calibrated to be over-active.
This would be evolutionarily advantageous, so the argument goes, because of the differential consequences of error in attributing agency. Inferring a tiger in the grass when it is in fact just a rush of wind carries few consequences, even if the error is repeated many times. On the other hand, the consequences of inferring no tiger when there is one, even once, can be deadly. Therefore, the brain would evolve a “hypersensitivity” to agents in the environment.
This concept is often deployed to make sense of the human tendency to infer invisible persons (such as ghosts, spirits, or gods) in natural events (for example, see this Psychology Today article).
If it is true that the brain has a HADD module, it would seem to go a long way toward explaining one of the most common reasons hard polytheists give for believing literally in the existence of deities: many say they feel their “presence.” This is not an air-tight argument, of course: just because the brain is prone to error doesn’t necessarily mean any given instance is in error. An exploration of the positive or negative implications of HADD for particular theologies is here.
See also “Agency”, and “Deity.”
Check out other entries in our HPedia.
A Pedagogy of Gaia, by Bart Everson: “Solstice Connections”
Editor’s note: Bart Everson will be presenting at the 10th Annual Conference on Current Pagan Studies in February in Claremont, CA. His paper is entitled “Toward an Ecocentric Program for Faculty Development”. Today we hear from Bart as part of his new regular column, A Pedagogy of Gaia.
Solstice Connections
Over the years, I have experienced increasing levels of cognitive dissonance around the Christian holiday. Many slough off the religious aspect of the day and focus on the secular attributes, but I could not. Perhaps it’s how I was raised. It is a tradition in my extended family to sing “Happy Birthday Jesus” at Christmas gatherings.
At the same time, I’m turned off by the rampant commercialization of the holiday, just as many Christians are. (We often imagine this commercialization to be a process that happened in the last generation or two, but this trend actually goes back to the early 1800s.) The economic pressure — buy, buy, buy, consume, consume, consume — not only leaves me cold, it actively distresses me.
There has to be something more. There has to be something real to celebrate.
And of course, there is. But what is it?
The solstice is the reason for the season … or is it?
Clouds on the horizon at the Winter Solstice.
Like many who have wondered about such things, I latched onto the idea of the Winter Solstice. I wanted to shout, “The solstice is the reason for the season!” After all, there are many similar mid-winter holidays all over the world, clustered around this celestial event.
Unfortunately, I didn’t know what more to do with this idea. It was an empty sort of “gotcha” moment. I focused on the mechanics of the solar orb and kind of stopped there, out in space somewhere. I had a vague idea that something more was possible, even necessary, but I didn’t know what. Something was still missing.
The more I’ve studied and learned on the subject, the more I’ve come to realize how simplistic my initial thoughts were. Yes, the solstice is the reason, but then again, no — not exactly.
Let me expand on that. An excellent example comes in the question of why the Christmas holiday was fixed at this time of year by the early church. For the first two centuries after the crucifixion, Christians did not celebrate the birth of Jesus at all. When the custom finally did begin, some observed it in May, others in April, others in March, still others in January. Indeed, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, “there is no month in the year to which respectable authorities have not assigned Christ’s birth.” December finally won out, for Roman Catholics at least; December 25 was the date of Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, a Roman festival celebrating the birth (or rebirth) of the sun god Sol Invictus. Accordingly, “the same instinct which set Natalis Invicti at the winter solstice will have sufficed […] to set the Christian feast there too.”
The instinct toward wholeness
Dies natalis solis invicti
So, yes, the solstice, but not exactly. It’s not the solstice per se, but the instinct behind it. It’s “the same instinct” behind Natalis Invicti. What is that instinct?
It wasn’t until I encountered the Wheel of the Year that I started making the necessary connections. In fact, I’d say that the solstice was my key to the Wheel. The Winter Solstice or Yule is often placed at the top in illustrations of the Wheel, and from a calendrical view this makes intuitive sense. (It would be cool if the word “Yule” actually derived from “wheel,” as some aver; however, students of etymology will note there’s no evidence for this.) The other contender for the top spot is Samhain, but I’m not trying to start a contest here. The point of the Wheel is its cyclical nature. It has no beginning and no end. Conversely, one can jump in and start anywhere. (In terms of actual celebration, Lammas was my jumping-in point, but that’s a story for another day.) The cycle of eight holidays arranged equally throughout the year asserts the natural rhythm of the seasons as a supreme value.
The solstice is a discrete moment, but its significance stems from its context in this cycle of the seasons, in the course of Earth’s orbit. Seeing the solstice in the context of the Wheel made all the difference.
This shift in perspective was a shift from fragments to wholeness. It seems so blindingly obvious now, so simple in retrospect. It’s indicative of how limited my earlier perspective was.
Instead of looking at the solstice as a remote event “out there” in space somewhere, I saw that it was intimately connected to life here on Earth. Though we often speak of “solar holidays,” the solstice is not a strictly solar event. It’s an Earth-Sun event. Nothing happens to the sun, after all; nothing changes there, though we seem to see changes from our place here on Earth.
It’s here, Earth, our home and Mother, that I’ve come to understand as both a sacred place and a divine being. Divinity is not “out there,” but right here. As Glenys Livingstone writes in PaGaian Cosmology, “When I speak of Mother, I understand Her as Holy Context, Place to Be.” We are not separate from the Mother; we are a a part of her. She is the place where all humanity lives, and a being in which we all participate.
But even this immense context of the Earth has a greater context. Even this awesome living planet exists in relation to the sun, the stars, the universe. The solstice, then, is that day when the sun appears to “stand still” from our vantage point here on Earth. (That’s what “solstice” means in Latin: sol + sistere = sun-standing.) In the summer, it’s the longest day, after which days get shorter; in the winter, it’s the shortest day, after which days get longer. Thus at the Winter Solstice our world seems to emerge from darkening night.
The solstices are one way, perhaps the best way, for us Earth-bound creatures to mark the fact that a year has elapsed.
Bringing the solstice down to earth
Side view of Newgrange burial mound.
There is evidence that ancient people did this. For example, the Newgrange monument in Ireland is aligned in such a way that the interior room is illuminated on the Winter Solstice. It was built around 3200 BC, which is pretty darn old. It was already centuries old when the Great Pyramid was constructed at Giza. So clearly people have been noticing this event for a long, long time.
Indeed, astronomy is considered the oldest of the natural sciences. Way back when, it was a key to power. Whoever could predict annual recurrence was obviously onto something. Priesthoods were built around this. Letting people know when to plant was vitally important to agricultural societies.
I used to think of the solstice as a transcendentally cosmic event. Once again, I was wrong. Just as my understanding of the solstice was enhanced by bringing it back “down to Earth,” restoring its proper context in the relation of Earth and sun, so too I now recognize the solstice as a fundamentally human phenomenon. To animals and plants, it’s just another day. The days get longer after the Winter Solstice, and the attendant changes will eventually come to our ecosystems. But to notice the event itself, to mark the day, and to understand its significance, to realize what it means, is very human indeed.
Thus, to contemplate the solstice is to meditate upon the very origins of science and religion and the essence of humanity. Can you feel the resonance echoing through the corridors of time? That’s a main purpose of ritual to me: to evoke that resonance. People around the world and throughout recorded history have celebrated this time of the year, as light re-emerges from the darkness, through the use of bonfires, candles, colorful electrical bulbs strewn on a wire, it matters not. When people do this they are participating in an ancient ritual, even if they don’t explicitly acknowledge the solstice.
A humanistic holiday
Burning yule logs to celebrate the shortest day of the year — a precursor to today’s Christmas and where the term yule or “jul” in swedish more or less comes from. Djurgården, Stockholm.
And so, when I stare into that flame we kindle on the longest night of the year, I’m thinking about so many things: science, religion, light, dark, birth, rebirth, conception, the Big Bang, cosmogenesis, sun, Earth, recurrence, seasons, the calendar, the Wheel of the Year, the passage of time, ritual, nature, Gaia, life, hope.
In thinking about the solstice this way, I’m aiming for what might be called a meta-perspective. That is, I’m focusing my attention on a natural phenomenon which has inspired many celebrations, religious and otherwise, over millennia of human existence. While the phenomenon of the solstice may not be known or directly observed by all, the poetry of the season is undeniable; I strongly suspect that most, if not all, mid-winter festivals found their original source in these poetics of light and darkness. By focusing on the solstice, an Earth-sun event seen from a human perspective, I am directly acknowledging a primal source of these multifarious celebrations.
Think of it this way: The solstice is like the Tannenbaum. Our various celebrations are like the ornaments. By celebrating the solstice, we are aiming to see the real tree for what it really is.
I encourage everyone to learn a few solstice facts. It’s not necessary to become a scholar on the subject overnight. Take your time. Learn a little every year. Talk about it with your friends and neighbors. After all, it’s their solstice too. This special moment is available to all the people of Earth, no matter their religion, no matter their country or continent. Those in the opposite hemisphere will be experiencing the opposite solstice, of course, but at the exact same moment; six months later our situations will be reversed. Even at the equator the solstice can be observed by the angle of the sun. It is truly a global event. Any opportunity that invites us to recall our connections to one another and to the natural universe is worthy of celebration.
The Winter Solstice is the ultimate holiday. Maybe not for you personally, or even for me, but for all of us in common — for humanity.
REFERENCES
PaGaian Cosmology by Glenys Livingstone
Catholic Encyclopedia article on Christmas
The Battle for Christmas by Stephen Nissenbaum
“For Richard Dawkins, Traditional Christmas Carols Trump Atheism”
Voices from the Dawn: Newgrange
The Author
In addition to writing the A Pedagogy of Gaia column here at HumanisticPaganism, Bart Everson is a writer, a photographer, a baker of bread, a husband and a father. An award-winning videographer, he is co-creator of ROX, the first TV show on the internet. As a media artist and an advocate for faculty development in higher education, he is interested in current and emerging trends in social media, blogging, podcasting, et cetera, as well as contemplative pedagogy and integrative learning. He is a founding member of the Green Party of Louisiana, past president of Friends of Lafitte Corridor, sometime contributor to Rising Tide, and a participant in New Orleans Lamplight Circle.
See Bart Everson’s other posts
This Saturday (Winter Solstice)
In lieu of our usual Winter Solstice post, this year we will hear a special solstice story from Meg Pauken, “An Ending, A Beginning”.
Mid-Month Meditation: “The role of death in the circle of life” by Molly
Editor’s note: We encourage our readers to take these mid-month meditations as an opportunity to take a short break from everything else. Rather than treating these posts the way you would any other post, set aside 10 minutes someplace quiet and semi-private to have an experience. Take a minute to relax first. After reading the post, take a few minutes to let the experience sink in. If it feels right, leave a comment.
baby chick
As I sit here
death is all around me
canopying the ground
with a blanket of brown
and yet still buzzing, teeming, throbbing with life.My womb sheds its lining
another egg that didn’t make it.
and baby chicks in the nest hatch
and then fail to take a first breathSometimes things die
because they didn’t get something they needed
And, sometimes they die
because their time has come
Sometimes they die
to make room for something else
and sometimes they die
and nourish and nurture the new growthIt is all part of the same whole
this tapestry that Life is weaving
day in and day out
New bursting forth from old
giving birth
over and over and over again
letting go
over and over and over again
Shedding, bleeding, giving, dying, flowing, knowing
Saying goodbye and helloThis pulse, this rhythm too
this ebb, this flow
is part of the greater whole
each thread
some picked up,
some let go
becomes a part of the tapestryNature has a higher loss tolerance rate than we do
I know that from sad, personal experience
and a multitude of observationsWhat matters
is that the overall pulse keeps beating
that the overall heart keeps singing
and that mother hens continue trying to hatch new chicks.– Molly, 2012
For further thought
When I go down to the woods alone, sit on a rock and open my mouth, sometimes poetry comes out. Last month, I was very sad when one of our mother hens hatched two new babies who died immediately. It is depressing to have them come so far and then not make it. For one of my ecology lessons at OSC, I wrote the following:
… baby chicks are one of the things that make me believe in “the Goddess.” Maybe that sounds silly, but when I sit before a nest and see the bright black eyes and soft down of a new baby chick, where before there was just an egg, I feel like I am truly in the presence of divinity. This, this is Goddess, I think whenever I see one. There is just something about the magic of a new chick that brings the miracle of the sustaining force of life to my attention in a profound way. (New babies of all kinds do it for me, but there is something extra special about chicks!) Of course, when several died, I couldn’t help but feel sad about all of that work and that wasted potential and how that little baby had come so faronly to die shortly after hatching, but that, to me, is part of Goddess/Nature/Life Force too. I do not believe in a controlling/power-over deity who can give life or take it away at will or at random. I know that things just happen, that the wheel keeps turning, and that while that force that I name Goddess is ever-present and able to be sensed and felt in the world and in daily life, it/she does not have any kind of ultimate “control” over outcomes.
Anyway, I was feeling sort of like, WHY, why did they get this far and then die so quickly? And, when I sat in the woods and opened my mouth, the answer that I’ve transcribed above is what came out…
I decided that now was the perfect time to post it since this morning I went out to the broody coop and in it was a brand new chick—the mother kept sitting and she got a fresh, bright, breathing baby for her efforts. The new baby is the one in the photo above…
Originally published at WoodsPriestess June 29, 2012.
The Author
Molly is a certified birth educator, writer, and activist who lives with her husband and children in central Missouri. She is a breastfeeding counselor, a professor of human services, and doctoral student in women’s spirituality at Ocean Seminary College. She is ordained as a Priestess with Global Goddess. Molly blogs about birth, motherhood, and women’s issues at http://talkbirth.me and about thealogy and the Goddess at http://goddesspriestess.com. She is presently working on a thesis about birth as a spiritual experience and welcomes idea sharing.
Next Wednesday
Next Wednesday, we hear from another of our new regular columnists, Bart Everson: A Pedagogy of Gaia: “Solstice connections”.
The HPedia: Modularity of Mind
Your help is needed! Please critique this entry from the HPedia: An encyclopedia of key concepts in Naturalistic Paganism. Please leave your constructive criticism in the comments below.
Theories of mental modularity propose that the human brain is composed of multiple organs or modules, each evolved to perform a specific cognitive task. There may be limited interaction between modules. The modularity idea stands in direct contrast to the idea of the brain as a tabula rasa, or blank slate.
The first modern proposal of modularity came from Jerry Fodor, who limited modules to the senses (sight, hearing, smell, etc.) and language (following Noam Chomsky’s language acquisition device), while the rest of human cognition is accomplished by a more fluid general intelligence. Other researchers have since extended the modularity concept to varying degrees. The most liberal version comes from Evolutionary Psychology, which posits “massive modularity”, including dozens or even hundreds of modules in a brain likened to a Swiss army knife (for example, see Tooby and Cosmides). Most versions find a middle ground with a limited number of modules complemented by general intelligence or g.
Steven Mithen has put forward a model of modularity in which an increasing fluidity between modules characterized human evolution. Mithen noticed little variation in tool manufacture prior to about 40,000 years ago, followed by an explosion of innovation by Cro-Magnons in the Upper Paleolithic. He explains this by proposing isolation of the tool-making module from other modules in earlier hominids:
Tools were made (physical science module) pretty much as they had “always” been made. No thought was given to the possibility that different prey (natural science module) might be better hunted with tools of a different design. (Haule)
An evolutionary adaptation which increased integration or cognitive fluidity between modules then ushered in the innovation of the Cro-Magnons.
Jungian psychologist John Ryan Haule has attempted to interpret Jung’s archetypes as mental modules. While the two concepts are similar insofar as both claim to be innate to human biology rather than learned, they differ upon closer inspection. Haule holds up language as a “model archetype”, along with sociality, but neither of these fit Jung’s descriptions of the archetype’s behavior:
when an archetype “becomes conscious, it is felt as strange, uncanny, and at the same time fascinating. At all events the conscious mind falls under its spell… [it] always produces a state of alienation.” (Haule, quoting Jung’s CW8: 590)
Such a description may seem difficult to align with language or sociality, but Haule defends it in his interview. It seems possible that Jungian archetypes, if they exist, might be modules, but not all modules are archetypes – certainly not language or sociality. Nevertheless, there are enough parallels between the two concepts that Jung might inspire an insight or two into mental modularity, especially in spiritual contexts.
See also “Archetype.”
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