The Winter Solstice

 

I have a theory.

It is a theory about our ancients and the keen knowledge some of them developed about the cosmos.  This is not based on science or any research I have done.  Perhaps, it is more a notion.  But, as it is the Winter Solstice, I thought I would share it.

I think of the time before any of the diversions we have today.  I am certainly talking before the internet, television, radio, and recorded music.  I am thinking well before electricity was harnessed and electric lights.  Let’s go back even before printed books, and even further, before scribed books and scrolls, before chiseled cuneiforms and painted hieroglyphics.  I am speaking of the time when the days were for working and nights were for whatever you could do by firelight and the few things you could only do in the dark.

One of the things you could do in the dark was stare at the night sky.  In the days I speak of, there was no ambient light on Earth.  The skies these days, in city and suburb, have a few visible stars and constellations.  We are lucky to see the Orion and the Big and Little Dippers.  But back then, the entire cosmos was visible to the naked eye.  There were millions of stars to seen and it was marvelous.  It was amazing, enchanting, and captivating.  The cosmos was the television and movies of those days. 

The brightest and most curious of ancestors started to see seasonal patterns and share them with others.  The also passed them down bright and curious kin or clansmen in the form of lore.  The notions of equinoxes (the two days a year when day and night are approximately the same duration) and solstices (the two times a year when we have the longest and shortest days).  They learned to be able to predict, to some degree, when solar and lunar eclipses might take place.

We are kind of amazed when learn about the astronomical layout of Pyramids, Greek Temples, and Mayan temples and cities.  I am amazed but not so surprised based on the theory I just laid out.  When last in Armenia, we viewed older churches positioned in such a way that the sun would shine directly through a circular window onto a royal gravestone in the middle of the sanctuary on a special day e.g. the summer solstice or the day the royal passed away.  Minoan sailors were navigating by the stars as early as 3000 to 1000 BC!

Why do I write about it today?  Well, it is the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere.  It is the shortest day of the year.  The sun rose this morning at 7:17 am and set this afternoon at 4:22 pm here in Chicagoland.  People have celebrated this time of year throughout history across many different regions and cultures.  Often, the date signals the end of one growing/harvest cycle and the start of another.  The shortest day of the year also makes it the longest night of the year.  The winter solstice marks the end of the dying of the light and the rebirth of the start of another cycle.

Humans may have observed the winter solstice as early as Neolithic period—the last part of the Stone Age, beginning about 10,200 BC.

 

Neolithic monuments, such as Newgrange in Ireland and Maeshowe in Scotland, are aligned with sunrise on the winter solstice. Some archaeologists have theorized that these tomb-like structures served a religious purpose in which Stone Age people held rituals to capture the sun on the year’s shortest day.

 

Stonehenge, which is oriented toward the winter solstice sunset, may also have been a place of December rituals for Stone Age people. ~ history.com

Maybe, my theory is not much of theory but rather just accepted fact.  Nonetheless, I have always been fascinated how the ancients observed and codified all of this and how we still observe them to this day.  Many of our Christmas traditions are rooted in winter solstice traditions pre-dating Christianity.  This includes the use of evergreen trees and wreaths and the burning the Yule log.

For me, in recent years, the winter solstice has become even more special because it is my daughter in-law Anoush’s birthday!  Happy birthday Anoush!