As I’ve reflected on the mythological and archetypal roots of the symbols associated with the Winter Solstice, something that has continued to fascinate me is the way the central images associated with this season all point back again and again to one central, overarching idea. These symbols all attest to the sense of something imperishable within us and within everything that lives. Something that dies and yet is reborn again and again to renewed and greater life. Some quality in both life and consciousness that shines out no matter how dimly and uncertainly in even the darkest night. In this blog post I will about be reflecting on a number of these symbols and this profound archetypal significance they share.
Of course, images of the sun are probably the oldest and most obvious symbol of the Winter Solstice, since it is the light of the sun that diminishes at this time of year leaving us for longer periods of time in darkness. Sun symbols have been enshrined in all ancient mythologies and Solar deities generally given the highest place of honor in mythological pantheons. That we depend on the Sun for our very existence is a key reason why humans have faithfully and — we can only imagine — fearfully followed its cycle of rising and sinking in the heavens so carefully since prehistoric times. Nor why some of the oldest ongoing celebrations, rituals, and customs observed by humans are in observance of the return of the Sun’s life-giving light at the Winter Solstice.
A second key symbol of the Winter Solstice are plants that are evergreen. For example, when 15th century Germans first began to bring trees into their homes at Christmastime, not surprisingly the trees they chose were evergreen. Since ancient times, evergreen trees — the only kind of tree that doesn’t take on a semblance of death in winter — has attracted the curiosity and wonder of humans. It’s not hard to imagine why any plant that remains green even in the dead of winter would come to symbolize the hardiness and persistence of the life force. For this reason, evergreen boughs were hung by many ancient peoples in their homes and public spaces as a part of their Winter Solstice celebrations.
A third central symbol associated with the Winter Solstice is that of the Child. Though Christians immediately associate the Solstice Child with the figure of the infant Jesus, for centuries before the birth of Jesus, peoples all around the ancient Mediterranean celebrated the birth of divine children at the Winter Solstice. On first glance, it may seem curious that these magical child gods – Dionysus in Greece, Mithra in Persia, Horus in Egypt, Tammuz in Mesopotamia — should be born at this darkest, most forbidding season of the year. But if we see the symbolism of Winter Solstice as celebrating that which is enduring and imperishable, how appropriate for the Child, that seed of new life, to germinate in the midst of the darkness and harshness of winter.
As ubiquitous as the Sun, the Evergreen, and the Child are as symbols of this season, ultimately, I think the primal symbolic image of the Winter Solstice is the dance of light and darkness. The annual dying of the light as we approach the shortest day and the rising darkness of the longest night are central to the experience of this time of the year, as is light’s triumphal return in the days that follow. We can only imagine the gasps of awe and the prayers of gratitude with which our primordial ancestors experienced this miracle of nature. At this magical season, we modern, often jaded, humans may still feel something of the reverence with which our ancestors greeted this day, when the Sun once again begins to rise higher and higher in the sky and with it the miracle of life renewing for yet another year.
I would like to end this post with my favorite Winter Solstice poem, The Shortest Day, written by Susan Cooper. For me, this poem captures the richness and antiquity of traditions that, in one form or another, have perennially connected humans to each other and the cosmos in celebrating of the return of the light at this most wondrous time of the year.
So the shortest day came, and the year died,
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive,
And when the new year’s sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, reveling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us — Listen!!
All the long echoes sing the same delight,
This shortest day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And so do we, here, now,
This year and every year
In closing, I extend my hope this Winter Solstice that each of you may rekindle your own unique spark of divine light, that you may use that spark to set your life ablaze with an unquenchable fire, a fire that will warm your heart, enlighten your mind, and fuel your passions in the year to come!