Reflections on the Solstice
Last year I wrote my second blog post about the warring forces in me, the feminist and the housewife. For me, the feminist is the ageless intellect, the clear-eyed thinker, the original Emily. The housewife is my socialized self, my more animal, emotional self, the mother and daughter, tied to family and tradition. I had written my first blog post about coaching and because my website is called Feminist Housewife, I felt I should have a post about what I meant by that. It’s honestly a pretty deep question for me and while I was grappling with that, Christmas was fast approaching. And now I’m doing it again (what is wrong with me?).
One of tasks that’s looming over me as I write this essay is writing my Christmas cards. When I was a little kid, every Christmas we would get a lot of mail. My mom sent xmas cards out and then got a bunch of these pretty cards back, which we would decorate our house with. When I was younger the years seemed longer so a whole year without contact with someone seemed like a long time. Now that I am much older, holidays seem to come around faster and I have gone way longer than a year between seeing people I love. Sometimes the ties that I have with friends become very thin and attenuated and in some cases the cards are the only point of connection.
Why do we spend so much time and effort celebrating this time of the year? So many people get together with their families at the beginning of the winter, traveling long distances, spending so much money that it’s a major boost to the American economy. It doesn’t seem remarkable because your parents have always done it, you've always done it, your friends have always done it. Every human culture has celebrations, has big parties where people dance, talk, meet new people, socialize with strangers.
The ancient Romans celebrated something called Saturnalia and it was very similar to our Christmas. They sent Christmas cards, they gave gifts and visited each other and had parties. It was very festive and jolly. In Scandinavia, they celebrated Juul, which is where many of our Yuletide customs, including the Christmas tree, come from. . The earliest archeological evidence of feasting was at a 12,000 year old burial site. Festivals developed as a way for communities to foster bonding, and develop unity within in a culture and often involve the communal consumption of highly seasonal or valuable resources.
Ancient solstice based festivals, any cultural celebrations, really, highlight what's important to people and what needs to be remembered. First of all, a lot of it is directly related to our survival. But for humans, it’s for far more than just survival. Let’s face it, we like to party, we like to have a good time. We’re extra. We've got so much going on that we don't just make cookies, we make chocolate chip cookies. You know what I mean? We put icing on it, we don't just settle for anything purely utilitarian, we like to dress it up. If you think about Christmas, it's not just the food, it's not just the presents, it's not just the cookies, it's not just the music, it's not just the decorations. It's all of it at one time.
So here we have the winter solstice, which is an astronomical phenomenon. It’s an objective fact: there is something called a winter solstice and there's something called a summer solstice and it happens every year. But then we have humans, creating layers and layers of meaning. For people who come from Christmas celebrating families, you remember what you felt when you were a really little kid, you're not quite sure what the fuck is going on. There's a tree in your house with lights on it and shiny presents underneath with toys and stuff inside. It just blows your mind. You are not going to forget that. It’s a peak experience in a human life.
Anywhere you go in the entire world, families have parties and and communities have festivals. This is an unusual behavior for a species although it is universal for humans. At first I thought that this practice is purely human, but it turns out, it’s not. Apparently gorillas have large parties, too!. Gorillas live in small family units but sometimes gather with other clans for an event likened to a human festival. The research suggests that these occur at “mast fruiting events” where a species of plant produces a bounty of seeds every few years. This suggests that humans having large gatherings may go back to our common ancestor with gorillas 8-10 million years ago. Something that’s been around for so long must be important for our survival.
Yuletide, the turning of the year, is a time for remembering. Memories are emphasized with emotion each year, they are rekindled every time we hear the same songs and taste and smell the traditional holiday foods being cooked. The whole season is designed to enhance memory and recall significant events. The taste of your favorite food can transport you back to your childhood. Add in the anticipation that’s involved in preparing traditional festival foods. Women cook for days and days sometimes before a feast, with children running around (because women are also taking care of the children).
Astronomy began because humans wanted to track time by developing calendars and to navigate across long distances. By 3,000 BCE many civilizations had developed sophisticated understanding of celestial cycles. Could it be that we invented astronomy so that we could have more accurate party invitations? “On the half moon when Orion is in the House of Saturn, meet by the river near the third mountain”. Maybe the winter solstice is a popular time for feasts because it is easy to tell when its coming. Just like birds know when to migrate, and bears to hibernate and squirrels to collect acorns, we also know when its time to gather with loved ones, and feast and bond and remember.