{"id":530,"date":"2004-12-21T05:42:00","date_gmt":"2004-12-21T12:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/wp2\/uncategorized\/the-reason-for-the-season\/"},"modified":"2004-12-21T05:42:00","modified_gmt":"2004-12-21T12:42:00","slug":"the-reason-for-the-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/theirs\/the-reason-for-the-season\/","title":{"rendered":"The Reason For The Season"},"content":{"rendered":"

Solace of solstice<\/a> by JOHN FOYSTON<\/p>\n

Being merry in the depth of darkness is a darned sight easier knowing that the sun hasn’t gone away forever, and Tuesday’s winter solstice is when we turn the corner back toward the sun and light.<\/p>\n

The winter solstice is the most hopeful of holidays, the one that requires utter faith in the great ticking clockwork of the heavens. It’s a day for the imaginative and the optimistic; the beginning of winter, yes, but also the day that promises that spring will come, and summer after that.<\/p>\n

The winter solstice has been celebrated far back into the mists of history and beyond. Calculating the exact day of the sun’s return inspired some of humanity’s earliest technological feats, still visible in sites such as England’s Stonehenge, the Yucatan Peninsula’s Chichen Itza, Chaco Canyon in the American Southwest, the temple at Karnak in Egypt and a score more around the world.<\/p>\n

At Newgrange in County Meath, Ireland, which was built about 5,000 years ago, the rising sun on the winter solstice sends a beam of light down a long passage to illuminate — for 14 minutes — a chamber that is dark the rest of the year. …<\/p>\n

This time of year has been celebrated in many ways by many cultures. There’s the Norse Yule, which lends us our traditions of decorated evergreens, holly and mistletoe; in Pharonic Egypt, the god\/man Osiris died and was entombed on the solstice; and ancient Greece had a solstice festival called Lenaea.<\/p>\n

The Romans probably were the solstice champs with festivals such as Saturnalia and many others, which were consolidated by Emperor Aurelian in the third century into dies natalis solis invicti, the Birthday of the Unconquered Sun, which was celebrated on Dec. 25. Christmas eventually supplanted that celebration, but during a period of centuries spanning the fourth to the 10th centuries.<\/p>\n

The point being that the solstice has been a cause for celebration for millennia. Here’s a brief primer on what actually happens on this day…. [entire article<\/a>]<\/p>\n

The Writer’s Almanac – DECEMBER 20 – 26, 2004<\/a><\/p>\n

In the northern hemisphere, today is the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year and the longest night. It’s officially the first day of winter and one of the oldest known holidays in human history. Anthropologists believe that solstice celebrations go back at least 30,000 years<\/b>, before humans even began farming on a large scale.<\/p>\n

To His Coy Mistress, by Andrew Marvell<\/a><\/p>\n

…Now, therefore, while the youthful hue
\nSits on thy skin like morning dew,
\nAnd while thy willing soul transpires
\nAt every pore with instant fires,
\nNow let us sport us while we may,
\nAnd now, like amorous birds of prey,
\nRather at once our time devour
\nThan languish in his slow-chapped power.
\nLet us roll all our strength and all
\nOur sweetness up into one ball,
\nAnd tear our pleasures with rough strife
\nThrough the iron gates of life:
\nThus, though we cannot make our sun
\nStand still, yet we will make him run.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Solace of solstice by JOHN FOYSTON Being merry in the depth of darkness is a darned sight easier knowing that the sun hasn’t gone away forever, and Tuesday’s winter solstice is when we turn the corner back toward the sun and light. The winter solstice is the most hopeful of holidays, the one that requires … Continue reading The Reason For The Season<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-theirs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}