The pagan peoples of old Europe considered the days around the Winter Solstice to be very sacred, they considered them powerful times to celebrate their relationship with the Gods, nature spirits and ancestors. In the Roman Empire this was the season of Saturnalia, a time of feasting in celebration of Saturn, the supreme God in the ancient, peaceful, farming times of the Bronze Age. The Romans dropped their togas and dressed up in colourful drag, gave presents, drank a lot, gambled and partied hard, for days. Role reversal was a theme – not only cross-dressing, but also banquets were held where the masters served the slaves. A King of the Saturnalia was elected from the people to oversee the feasts and encourage everyone to get stuck in. 3rd century philosopher Porphyry said the liberation and liberties of the Saturnalia was symbolic of the “freeing of souls into immortality.” Like all good pagan celebrations, the goal, from the revellers’ point of view, was to achieve a state of blissful union with the gods and ancestors, and thereby have a remembrance of their own eternal nature.
In northern Europe our Norse and Germanic forebears celebrated their beloved Gods over the 12 days of Yule, continuing a mid-Winter tradition of ancestor veneration that dated back millennia into the Stone Age, when elaborate tombs and stone circles were built, some aligned to catch the rays of the Solstice sunrise. Odin was worshipped during Yule – one of his many names was Jólnir (‘the Yule one’). Note that, of all the Norse Gods, Odin was the only one associated with practice of ‘seidr’, the shamanic magic that was usually the province of women. In the fierce maleness of Viking culture male practitioners of this craft, at least since history was recorded, were looked down on, called argr, unmanly -noun ‘ergi’ – yet Odin, the strongest war God, was master of the craft.
On the 24th December the pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon culture in Britain and northern Europe celebrated the feminine – this was Modraniht, the Night of the Mothers, a time to celebrate and revere the nurturing, protective energy of the maternal gods and ancestors. Heartfelt homage was paid to deities such as Frigg, the mother of the gods, and Freyja, the goddess of love and fertility and to the Mother spirit in all her forms. It is believed that these deities, who had been worshipped for thousands of years, watched over and protected their people, offering love and guidance during the dark and challenging times of winter. In Germany the practice of lighting candles and fires to hold all-night ceremony died out with the advance of Christianity in the 5th century, but the Angles and Saxon tribes who moved to England at that time kept this holy night alive. The Venerable Bede wrote of it in the 8th century.
25th December, the date chosen by the Pope Julius I in the 4th century as Jesus’ birth celebration – probably to create a Christian alternative to the Saturnalia – was already the birthday of Sol Invictus (Invincible/Unconquerable Sun), the official Sun God of the late Roman Empire since the revival of his cult by the Emperor Aurelius in 274 CE. December 25th was known as Dies Natalis Solis Invicti (‘birthday of the Invincible Sun’). After 312 CE, when the Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity and made it an official religion, the worship of Sol Invictus waned. The last inscription to him dates to 387 CE, though the cult certainly persisted into the 5th century, as Augustine preached against the devotees.
As much as Christians tried to focus the December celebrations on Jesus, the more subversive and liberating elements of the old traditions hung on through the Middle Ages. The Church repeatedly, for centuries, tried to ban the cross-dressing and animal masquerades associated with the January ‘Kalends’, New Year celebrations in Europe. Peter Christologus, 5th century Bishop of Ravenna, complained about men turning themselves into women during the Kalends. In 6th century Gaul, Church leader Caesarius of Arles was also alarmed by the cross-dressing and particulary by the look of the bearded soldiers in drag!
Persisting into early modern times, the Saturnalian principle of Winter festivities that challenged society’s norms remained in the popular consciousness – from the 13-16th centuries many towns in England elected a Lord of Misrule, echoing the Roman King of Saturnalia, to preside over the Feast of Fools on January 1st. The Protestant reformation brought suppression of these festivities because of their pagan associations, with the Puritan government of England in the mid 17th century banning the Lord of Misrule, from which the tradition never recovered.
Christmas as we know it was invented in the 19th century, when elements from the past were mixed together to form our modern festival mixing holiness and consumerism. Christmas is in many ways the one grand feast of capitalism – when the coffers fill, and people everywhere continue the ancient Saturnalian habit of getting drunk for nearly two weeks, but now more for escapism than any sense of mystical wonder. It is the only feast of the year that still retains any trace of ‘sacred’ significance for many people. So many feel the magical energy of the season that the atmosphere deepens and there is here a chance for everyone to touch the Infinite, and maybe feel the spark of divine light reborn within themselves.
Jesus wasn’t born in December. But the Jesus story is more than – questionable – history: it is a very real symbolic, mystical teaching. Jesus represents the Birth of the Divine Light – of God-on-Earth – which makes the Winter Solstice the absolutely right moment to celebrate, but instead of the light in ourselves, Christianity puts the emphasis on an external saviour, and keeps everyone subservient to the Father God and his manifestation on earth – the rules and demands of the patriarchy.
The story of the virgin birth actually points, as mythology expert Joseph Campbell describes in his book Goddessses, to the second birth – the spiritual birth – within ourselves. Jesus represents the birth of the divine, cosmic – christ’- consciousness within us, which comes through the grace of the Divine Mother, no Daddy God required. The birth that comes when we wake up and surrender to the miracle and majesty of Creation, to the wonder and magic of existence – if we ever do! Modern life keeps us focused on external details and dramas, and our scientific mythos does not even recognise the reality of the second birth. When people experience it they may get labelled sick and given medication. We are living in a time of intense frequency control – media, religion, laws, capitalism – all the patriarchal powerbases are keeping humanity locked into tales of conflict, disconnection, lack, suffering – and IGNORANCE that this is an inversion of the divine reality, THE OPPOSITE of the reality of the Mother’s Creation!
The Mother Spirit, revered for millennia by our ancestors, still holds us in unconditional love, in complete compassion, in unerring confidence in our goodness. She offers us nurturing, healing, inspiration. She simply asks we care for her Creation – all of it – and embody the compassion She wants for the world. When we remember her, when we honour and venerate Her again, She will come to us, for She is the shakti, She is the shekhinah, She is the sakina, She is the Holy Spirit, She is the Presence of the Divine on Earth. The Christmas story tells of the Divine Mother birthing the God in human form. The mythology is there to remind us we are that human form, and the Mother is always holding us. Other myths conveyed this message before the Christian one – Isis and Horus had been adored as the Mother and Divine Child archetype around the eastern Mediterranean for millennia, and other cultures of the world have the same imagery.
When we feel the comfort in the atmosphere at Christmas it is Her holding us, because you know darn well old Saturn is off getting drunk and laid somewhere……….
rainbow messenger 