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Sunday – Winter Solstice
The connection between Christmas and paganism’s winter solstice, while a source of distress to some fundamentalists, enhances the season in my eyes. An Episcopalian rector once observed to me that there are many roads to the top of the mountain because, when it comes to articulating our sense of the divine, no single symbol system or set of rituals is adequate in and of itself. We cobble together various traditions in ways that we find meaningful and go from there. For me, Christmas’s origins in fertility religions is an essential part of the celebration.
Susan Cooper, who specializes in Celtic fantasy, taps into the holiday’s pagan origins in “Winter Solstice.” Enjoy!
Winter Solstice
By Susan Cooper
And 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 now so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome, Yule!
