Like every gift-greedy kid, I used to slip out of bed and tiptoe through the cold, dark hallways on December nights to the room where the Christmas tree stood, eager to ogle the presents piled beneath it.
But sometimes, when I got there, the blinking, twinkling, glittering galaxy of lights that adorned the tree's branches -- like the stars that once shone through them in the forest at night -- would captivate me, making me forget all about the material riches I'd come for. If I stood long enough in that shimmering light, it would draw me into a half-awake, half-dreaming state. Ordinary time seemed to fall away, and the particular moment I was in would flow into a vast eternity.
When the world goes dark in wintertime, people of almost every religion find ways to celebrate the light. Christians mount a star of Bethlehem on their rooftop; Jews light candles on a Hanukkah menorah; Hindus fill their homes with Diwali lamps. What they all share is the intuition that physical light is a metaphor for -- maybe even a connection to -- the force of spirit.
"Bright is that which is brightly coupled with the bright" is what Abbot Suger, the inventor of Gothic architecture, carved on the door of the first cathedral to be illuminated with stained-glass windows, echoing Plato's connection of the Sun's light with the radiance of the Good. (Suger, too, used to be drawn into a mystical trance by "the multicolor loveliness of the gems" that glittered on his church's altar furnishings.) Even scientists seek evidence of the genesis of the universe by tracing rays of ancient starlight all the way back to the Big Bang.
For Pagans, who see all the world as animated with spirit, Winter Solstice -- the longest night of the year -- is a time to turn the "Wheel of the Year" and bring back the light of the Sun, that blazing being Who gives us life amid the cold, dark void of space. If spirit and light are essentially one, Pagans believe, then it only makes sense to recognize the divinity in the greatest light we see. (Up until modern times, artists conventionally depicted the Sun with a face, as you can see in old woodcuts.)
Local Wiccan groups carry on many old Winter Solstice traditions that center on the return of the Sun God and on honoring the light in the darkest time of year.
"We rise before daybreak on Solstice morning to welcome the returning Sun," notes Byron Ballard, high priestess of Notre Dame de l'Herbe Mouillée. "We also celebrate using a Yule log and various candles to re- light the Celestial globe." The Yule log is a piece of oak big enough to burn on a hearth all through that longest night of the year.
"At each of the Solstices, we enact the battle of the Oak King and Holly King," says Coven Oldenwilde's high priestess, Lady Passion. At the Winter Solstice, the Oak King, who represents the waxing light of the Sun, ultimately wins the battle and rules over the next six months till the Summer Solstice, when the throne is won back by the Holly King (representing the waning Sun).
Although these groups' rites won't be open to the general public, you too can celebrate the light in the darkness on the night of Winter Solstice (Dec. 21-22 this year). Find a stout oaken log to throw on the fireplace, invite some friends over for eggnog and coffee, and keep yourselves warm all night with good cheer till the newborn Sun arises in the east.
And if it's a clear evening, you might take a moment to walk outside and lose yourself in the twinkling, glittering interplay between the lights that decorate the neighborhood around you and the ancient stars that sparkle through the vastness of the night.
[Pullquote:] When the world goes dark at wintertime, people of almost every religion find ways to celebrate the light.