Facebook friend: “Happy Winter Solstice y’all!!”
Me: “It’s not Winter Solstice! It’s Jesus’ birthday!”
It’s Christmas time, again, and everyone is possessed by the holiday spirit; their hearts bursting with joy and merriment bursting from their souls’ pustules like eggnog with visions of sugar plumbs repressing stress-filled memories. Seriously though, why do holidays need to be every year? They start up the Christmas music in October, makes me wonder why they don’t play it all year round—not that I mind Christmas music, especially The Beach Boys “Little St. Nick”. The baritone in the chorus just serenades my soul. The Beach Boys are carrying on with their typical up-beat neodoo-wop harmonizing that sensationalized the whole surfer lifestyle (or, at least, I imagine it that way as it was before my time): “It’s the little saint—ooo little St. Nick…” and, suddenly, the depressed singer comes in to the key of a person whose dog was just run over with, “Christmas comes this time each year.” This song, melancholic baritone specifically, is an accurate depiction of my Christmas experiences—everyone is gay with harmony and I’m just over here “Christmas comes this time each year…” However, they haven’t been all bad, and now that I have young children and antidepressants, not to mention failing the annual sabotage like the Grinch (and not unlike the Grinch), I am starting to enjoy Christmas again and succumbing to thy will. But, before I don my gay apparel and embrace the holiday festivities, there are some things I need to get off my chest.
Every year without fail, I end up a victim of some pompous preacher, priest, family member, friend, and/or otherwise not mentioned acquaintance’s self-righteous tirade designed to promote Christian values and disparage materialism or inhibit any ideas that some type of joy could be garnered from the material world (as if Christian values and materialism are mutually exclusive): “Jesus is the reason for the season.”—Humbug! The reason that Christmas is associated with Christ, is because the church could not stop the celebrations with festivities and stories dating all the way back to prehistoric times when the holidays actually meant something—something real, something physical, something material—and played an essential role in human culture. Winter solstice is the celebration of death (in the Freudian instinctual sense): a recognition of limited time leading to traditions of debauchery. Winter solstice is the longest night of the year before the days grow longer again, and there is hope that that goodwill of men will lead us back into the fertile spring of milk and honey, or, at least, have compassion on the pathetic souls not apt for survival of the long winter.
Astrotheology:
It’s been a long time since I’ve studied astrotheology, and even longer since I’ve read ancient Egyptian scripture, but I realize many people have never even heard of such things. So, sorry if I bore you to death with these quick facts; I’ll make it brief (even though, it is not my strength). Many of the ancient myths are based on celestial phenomena and the changing of seasons. The winter solstice, specifically, occurs annually from around the time of December 22 – 25 on the Gregorian calendar. During this time, it was said that the sun dies for three days: the sun is the furthest away from the north pole than any other days of the year, and then, days start to get longer again. Legend has it that Osiris (the sun god), was murdered by his brother and his body parts cast over the land of Egypt. The constellation Orion is linked to Osiris, and, at this time, it is in the constellation of the Sagittarius (who some believe to be the “stable holder”), and, the belt of Orion, said to be the “three wise men” or “three kings”. The same time the Eastern most star is rising, the sun is rising into the constellation of Virgo associated with Osiris’s wife Isis; hence, the sun, Horace (savior of the sun and the avenger of his father), is said to be born of a virgin. Now, it is obviously more nuanced than this, and (for geeks like me) this rabbit hole is deep, steep, with a lot of twists and turns, but this basic foundation should suffice for this discussion concerning the festivities of Christmas.
Appropriation
Most Roman myths were based on earlier Greek myths, and those Greek myths were influenced by myths and customs of Egypt (what the Greeks called Kemet)[1]. There is a significant amount of research regarding how the Septuagint (which is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible) was influenced by Greek philosophy and, more specifically, Platonic philosophy. The Septuagint was the version that was used when first translated to Latin, which is where English versions are derived. However, even the Hebrew version has its roots in Egyptian influence and Egypt itself based on earlier myths from the ancient Mesopotamia, Isis being associated with Ishtar for instance. This happens throughout the world, and still happens to this day. The festivals are based on real phenomena, and, the stories or myths developed, assimilate because they share the same meaning and describe the same phenomena. The Romans had a process called evocatio where, instead of forcing people to drop their religion, they took down their deity’s pictures/symbols, and replace it with theirs. This way they kept the same customs but were exposed to their symbolism. There are accounts of Israelites being crucified for destroying gold Roman eagles (for instance) placed in the Temple of Jerusalem. The fact that these stories and festivals come from something real doesn’t make them less believable, it makes it more believable. In fact, it corroborates the accounts written in the Hebrew Bible (the flood, for instance, Mithra, savior of the sun, festival of lights or Chanukah, et cetera). Like I said, the winter solstice myths and traditions run deeper than history itself.
I’m not going to get into the Jungian archetype from the collective unconscious but suffice to say myths contain truth whether they are true or not (I am also going to skip right past the little-known fact that no piece of history is written without intent or bias—a story requires the three acts and resolution is inevitable). There is also the fact that that this same phenomenon is witnessed everywhere in the Northern Hemisphere; so, it is not insane to consider that the stories don’t copy each other but describe the physical world. Now, I know the Evangels and/or otherwise unspecified puritan protestant run-off of the church are sweating like Christ on the cross three days before the vernal equinox, but I must deal with the atheists, mythicists, and afrocentricists before they wet their stockings with glee.
Nativity Hubbub Humbug
First and foremost, the “virgin birth” of (2) gospels are thought to be a misinterpretation of messianic prophecy found in the book of Isaiah from a Hebrew word meaning “young woman”, and unrelated to sexual experiences. Another interesting finding is that the constellation of “Virgo” being a “virgin” is also a misinterpretation of a word meaning “powerful goddess” or “woman”, whether the word “virgin” derives from this etymology or not. Not only are these interpretations and their backgrounds questionable, but the stories themselves do not really come to this conclusion. Isis collects the body parts of Osiris and puts them back together in order to birth Horus, and later accounts, she fashions a penis from material as Osiris’s penis was eaten by a crocodile (seems perfectly logical the narrative may have changed to better fit the motif). Mithra was born of a stone, by the way, a lot of mythicists like to make up myths for Mithra then liken them to Jesus—Bah. I am not going to continue to argue mythicists’ perspectives, but for anyone who has been duped into believing mythicist literature, I recommend: “Did Jesus Really Exist?” by Bart D. Ehrman. He demolishes said mythicist theories in the introduction; so, one could potentially dispel false beliefs while still remaining ignorant of the positive argument of Jesus of Nazareth’s existence. Furthermore, what does being a “virgin” even mean? Many of the hubbub concerning the nativity scene is related to the “only son of God” bit, but the Gospel of Luke states Adam is the son of God, crystal clear, could not be more blatant. And let us presume The Bible is the infallible word of god and there are no mistranslations in any version, does it not follow that the immaculate conception was based on a prophecy? Does Jesus not reveal himself through previous stories that came before him?
Death and Resurrection of the Sun
The birth of Horus is more similar to the death and resurrection story of Jesus, rather than the nativity, and this happens over Passover. According to Luke, Mary was immaculately inseminated when John the Baptist’s mother was 6 months gestation in utero; John was born during Passover which puts Jesus’ birth 6 months after (assuming both the mothers went full term) placing it in November, at the latest. However, it is worth pointing out that the Nicene Creed states Jesus rose again from the dead after 3 days “in fulfillment of the scriptures,” and Paul the Epistle points this out in the first letter to the Corinthians as well. To which scripture do they refer? There are allusions made in some of the gospels to fulfillment of this prophecy, but Paul is writing a good 40 years (at least) before the gospels. Even the most hardened evangelical has to know that the gospels were written after Jesus’s life; even if God itself wrote the gospels, the acts had to be done. Even if Jesus’s entire ministry was live streamed, the streaming will not be occurring before it happens.
I started to get a little riled up there. The point that is being made here is, prior to the canonizing scripture, The Bible (literally translated to “library”), there was no defined Christian scripture. There is no reason messianic prophecies need be strictly from the book of Isaiah or Daniel (who Jesus himself seemed fond of), and, furthermore, there are many people who do not believe he fulfilled any of the prophecies: They’re called “Jews”. Even at its most basic level the Messiah (meaning the “anointed one” such as King David and Cyrus the Great), the messiah is someone who restores Jerusalem back to a Jewish state. Theodr Herzl or Walter Rothchild got a better claim than Jesus from that perspective. Christians have a different definition of messiah: Jesus. The fact is The Torah itself is based on older stories, myths, and prophecies. Mythicists take pride in this, but this serves corroboration to the stories in the Hebrew Bible, not the other way around. To say that gospel writers, Jesus himself, or anything surrounding New Testament and/or apocryphal Christian texts, were accidently making connections with the prophecy is just… Look—this has gone on long enough—people are conflating winter solstice traditions with scripture and/or incorporating their gods with them, and that is just a fact. Look it up.
Appropriation (Revisited)
“Jesus was the Son of God, that’s no lie, but really they were talking ‘bout the Sun up in the sky…” -KRS-One
St. Augustine said there was an easy conversion to the winter solstice festivities in Christ, and even related to Judaism with the whole “festival of lights” celebration (Jesus being the “light”). They changed the sabbath to “Sunday” which is the day of the sun, rather than “Saturday” the day of Saturn. Early church leaders and writers did consider the solstice to be the appropriate time for Jesus’s birth, and made comparisons: Sol Invictus, the “unconquerable sun,” and associated Jesus with the “Sun of Justice” and the “Sun of God”. That’s not to say that early Christians were all about the celebrations. Arianism, for instance, did damage to the popularity of the celebrations, which is pro’ly why Arius got slapped up by St. Nick at the First Council of Nicaea. So, before everyone tries to “X” out “Christ” from Christmas in celebration of the appropriation or misappropriation, I just need to say this, despite what I just said: The term Xmas was invented by the church; the Greek word “Χριστός”, meaning Christos, was abbreviated. So, BAH! [Rudy’s dad’s voice (Ned Beatty) at the beginning when Rudy tells his dad he’s going to play ball for Notre Dame, and he goes “Rudy? Bah!” and raises his hand like he’s going to back hand him.]
Things die in the winter. It is cold, illness is prevalent, the plants die; this why Germanic tribes would put the pine trees in their homes during Yule (their winter solstice holiday) because it was a plant that was unphased through the whole winter; a natural symbol of surviving the winter. The people needed to slaughter most of their livestock because they could not afford to supply all the animals with nourishment; this was likely the only time there was a surplus of meat available for consumption. The spirits from the harvest would be finished fermenting and ready for popping. They would get the biggest log they could find (Yule log), and the party would continue until it stopped burning. Judgement was upon them (Oden flying through the sky deciding who lives or dies, for instance). The Roman Empire would celebrate Saturnalia and flip all the social institutions: the “feast of fools”, for instance, slave masters would serve their slaves and their slaves would be the master through the season. Juvenilia, the celebration of children. They would give each other gifts have orgies, gay orgies, and/or orgies with children. All these festivities are based around the idea of death, and a reflection on mortality. A time to be merry and gay, for the winter is long and cold, but hell is hot.
[1] It is a little-known fact that most of ancient Greek culture was heavily influenced by Egyptian peoples and I’ve had many a history teacher vehemently argues it, and, if I’m being honest, it does seem racist that people would find it offensive that the biggest influencers of Western culture were educated by Africans.
Evil Do-Gooders
The Puritans, in their attempt to abolish these wanton traditions and anything fun, were largely unsuccessful. In fact, it is said that the abolition of Christmas, is what reinstated the monarchy in England (circa 1660). These Puritans were so unsuccessful in influencing the culture that they had to give up and move to the “new world”, hellbent on ruining orgiastic unadulterated Christmases. These are the people who hate Santa Claus, and want to verbally flog you for the heretical, blasphemous, crime—sin, even! —of associating anything to do with solstice with anything other than Jesus’s birthday. (By the way, early Christians and possibly even Christ, associated birthday celebrations with paganism.) These do-gooders are so good that they have relinquished anything pleasurable for metaphysical (postmortem) rewards, and, yet they believe punishments should be realized while you’re alive; these pompous psycho psychopomps think themselves qualified to speak for God in how the metaphysical reward will be doled out. No one should dare imply that worldly rewards are obtainable! That someone, other than God as interpreted by Puritan hypocrisy, should judge humans! Who’s the real Ebenezer ‘round here? In a lot of ways, the Puritans are correct in saying Xmas has no roots in Christianity, but, like the majority of their arguments, they falter with a little analysis.
Santa
It is sometimes fun to hear stories of some people when they discover Santa Claus is not real. For instance, this girl I dated and her sister (when they were young) were carrying on about how all Santa’s presents was way better than their mothers until she finally blew: “There is no Santa! I bought all those presents and wrapped them!” Then, they started bawling. I could never figure that out—how children (and seemingly lose trust into adulthood) are so offended that their parents lied to them.
I never believed in Santa Claus; it seemed my entire childhood consisted of the adults trying to convince us that Santa was real: planting evidence, presenting the algorithm about how much time he spent in the house according to the census and assuming he travels at the speed of light, having an accomplice jingle bells in the other room, and whatnot. It isdifficult to even think of a Santa movie where the moral of the story isn’t based on “belief” or “faith” in a Santa (or some other form of belief). Then, you got the Puritans saying, “Don’t be mad at my kids when they tell your kid Santa isn’t real; we are Christians!” Of course, once again they fail to realize St. Nicholas was a bishop in the early church. Santa Claus comes from the Dutch “Sinterklaas.” Some of the stories were appropriated and/or conflated to give it a Christian spin, sure, but to deny any other tradition related to your love for the nativity story, or Jesus, or whatever is really just silly. “Twas the Night Before Christmas” was a poem written by Charles Moore, who tried to deny penning the poem because he was a puritan preacher, and elevated Santa Claus to the level of superstardom (also in staying true to his Puritan doctrine of hypocrisy). However, prior to the rise in popularity in America, St. Nick (Santa), Krampus, Belsnickel, Black Pete, Knecht Ruprecht, and the Elf (are the ones caricatured above anyway), according to legends, came together to punish little brats and rewarding the others. The dreadful epiphany (double entendre intended) on that fateful Christmas morn when the revelation of their parent’s deceit comes to fruition and these spoiled brats are responsible for the recent boost in popularity of atheism if you ask me, and I’ll explain: In my many debates with the atheist brats, they love to bask in their cleverness upon foolishly accusing (and assuming of) a theist of being indoctrinated and never giving any critical thought to their belief system in a dull analogy to a belief in Santa Claus (I am only referring to the people who find joy in this activity, obviously, lest I be a hypocrite). They do this because this is the source of their own tribulation and cannot let loose the grudge they hold against their parents for fooling them concerning the precise proprietor of their presents for which they are entitled. Clearly, we need Santa and his crew more than ever, because, instead of being taken or whipped, they are growing up to be little nihilist Grinches in their own right. (Even though, all the good ones seem spoiled by the end of the holidays too.)
Conclusion:
All the different customs share a common theme: the sun has died, along with many things with it, and now the days will start getting longer. There is a sentiment of insecurity, how the winter will judge you and push the primitive man to their limits. The belief in something, faith in fellow man, that people be merry and good will toward men. There is nothing wrong with this, and I have started to enjoy the festivities. I have kids now and we left little Santa buttons he must have busted off in the stockings; I plan to wrap coal in the future for them. I asked my nephew what he wanted from Santa, and says, “I want a PlayStation.” (Or whatever they’re called.) I said, “I’ll tell ya right now, you’re probably not gonna get it. Those elves ain’t no good at making electronics; simple mechanisms, maybe. If I were you, I would ask for maybe something made from wood.” I listen to Christmas music, watch Christmas movies, there is a Christmas book exchange with my family, and all the old memories about how everyone wants a real tree and all that turns brown in the house before the person (me), that never wanted even a tree, threw it out. Everyone wants all this fun, pomp, and spectacle, but someone else has to provide it. Here is a little background before I fully conform to the duties of Christmas so others’ can enjoy the experience at my expense, and, as promised, here are the things I need to relieve from my chest prior to fully embracing my parental role in neopagan traditions:
Daddy wants to have fun too. I’m not going to break my neck to put Christmas trees, decorations, and/or lights up and down. Save your “Christ’s birthday rhetoric” and all your silly beliefs, superstitions, and dogmas for the children. When you’re up on your pulpit spreading lies about the evils of capitalism and consumerism, look the other way when you see me coming, and don’t tell me I drank too much to go to midnight mass! BAH! Humbug! You’re going to talk to me about the true meaning of Christmas??? Baaaaaah… And all you nihilists save your breath about the appropriation of traditions; where do you think customs come from? Atheists, these vain creatures, storming around with disdain for tradition, morals, and ethics, yet insist on more laws talking as Lizavéta Prokófyevna describes them in Dostoyevsky’s “The Idiot”: “Make way, we are coming! Give us every right and don’t you dare breathe a word before us. Pay us every sort of respect, such as no one’s ever heard of, and we shall treat you worse than the lowest lackey!” All you grinches and scrooges are responsible for dissent and disrespect and want to kill any memory of the orgiastic holiday we once knew and needed. Furthermore, now that the Christmas spirit has entered my body (whether consensually or not), the Neopuritans with their science worship, celebrating the birth of their prophet Isaac Newton (who really was born on December 25th), and shut down all the fun so you do not catch a virus. Because everyone knows only the bad children who don’t follow social isolation get COVID, and all the good children are rewarded with democracy and stimulus checks. Unless of course you’re the proprietor of judgement and a cardinal in the scientific papacy; for they all have gotten together with their families. Poor Dr. Deborah Birx had to retire because people were so mean to her for recommending lockdowns but getting together with her family, but don’t worry, in true stereotypical puritan hypocrisy, she explains that her family has locked down haven’t seen anyone for 3 months or better and needed it, and the good children are rewarded again. These Scrooges and imps, science worshippers, tell us that the COVID virus is going to creep down our chimney at night and infect you with viruses or put stimulus checks in stockings. Which, you want to talk about Christmas miracles and magic? Watch as the benevolent government pulls trillions of dollars out of thin air—poof!
And Scroo’ New Year’s Too
New Year’s Eve/Day is the worst holiday ever. There is a collective feeling that a new year is upon us and thus new beginnings (end of Xmas, days getting longer ironically), and the annoyance of the people in the gym and with new gym memberships peaks. Your crackhead friend is making a resolution to stop using which lasts until 12:01. Everyone is dressed up, and everyone is out on the town. Your buddies are out with awesome seats to something, or doing something else that’s awesome, but your significant other will not allow you to be anywhere else but with her. They want a kiss when the ball drops; this is something women discuss and wait for. Every year, without fail, you’re stuck at some bar, people piss drunk and having fun, you’re half-drunk because you got reflux and/or nausea because you’re at some swanky expensive cocktail bar that puts a drop of liquor in your pop and all the pop is making you sick, and you look around and see a bunch of people you don’t even like! All you can think about is leaving. Did I mention you’re cold as hell? Yes, it is freezing. Women all around, drunk and stupid, giving you those flirty eyes and moving in close but it is more annoying than seductive because they nystagmusly drift every time you make eye contact; your date is searing the back of your head with her eyes just for talking with this girl in a tight sparkly dress and you know if you give her a smooch the rest of the night (and subsequently the brand new year) will end in an argument of drunken stupor proportions… You know, your girlfriend is in a jealous fury, hysterical, and you’re half-sleep, half-drunk, and you start to wonder (other than why champagne hurts your teeth and make it feel like you have cavities or if it happens to anyone else) how she could be so upset and you don’t feel the slightest bit moved to any emotion besides tremendous irritation, and you would tell her you’d rather not see her again in your entire life than continue this conversation and would break up with her at once if it would take more work and irritation to do so. Of course, you do not kiss her, and she starts to dance with you. You’re still waiting for a drink (only been 45 minutes but you do have your order in), and she is dancing on you. You just made your girlfriend mad and there was a small argument before you went to get a drink because you did not want to dance with her. There you are, stuck between a rock and soft place, wanting to be polite, and wanting to forcefully remove her from your personal space. Then, you go to play ball the next morning, already annoyed with everything, and you have to park down the street because the resolutioners have filled up the parking lot and you have to walk through the slush and cold, slightly tired, slightly hungover, slightly annoyed, and thinking “I haven’t had this much fun since I had those genital warts cryogenically burned off my penis: HUM-BUG!
Just as an example… an example of every single year… Eventually I boycotted the holiday completely and why I always liked working on New Year’s Eve—popping St. Julian’s sparkling juice in an empty ICU room at the hospital, looking out over the city, sometimes catching some fireworks or something, and get right back to work. Eventually, the gunshot wound (GSW) patient comes in (not badly injured but protocol requires ICU stay for GSWs) and some of his friends come visit, next thing you know, and there are people blowing lines, popping champagne, and getting busy in the family room and disturbing family members that are really sick. All the sudden, they want you to go out there and let security know when people come back, but you are like, “What are they even doing wrong?” And you get in a small argument with the charge nurse because how is this your responsibility? However, apparently security had a similar conversation because they start kicking the people out, but then the tight sparkly dress New Year’s Eve nymph, for all nymphs wear tight sparkly dresses even pre-Tinkerbell and suddenly seems to want to kiss you. She makes you take down her phone number, she just cannot take yours, and all your co-workers see it. And, they want you to know that she was going around to all the girls saying she was a “modeling agent” and trying to recruit them and suspected “modeling agent” was some kind of euphemism for a pimp. However, you got paid, and, even though all the girls at work think you’re a whore, they probably already thought that anyway; the charge nurse will hold a grudge for a little while, but you didn’t have to police the ICU family room. Altogether, not a bad night for a run in with the New Year’s nymph. So, humbug to New Year too: I’m going to swerve across the street and get low in the hot tub for a few hours.