I started a new tradition with my kids a few years ago. In the summer, when the weather is reasonably good, I take the oldest ones up to northern Minnesota for a little camping. We find the remotest location possible within a State Park and set up housekeeping in a tent for three or four days. We sleep on the hard ground, we eat food that has been warmed up over a fire and we explore the area in the hopes of seeing large and potentially dangerous animals (at a distance). I mention this here only as a prelude to my train of thought. This camping, although rustic, is far from primal - we have an easily built fire, we have mostly prepared foods, we have a car in which to drive away if the weather turns foul, but it allows my kids to see how easy life really is for us most of the time. This last year, I brought along a flint striker and let them set about starting their own fire. After nearly an hour of attempts there had been only a small fizzle of flame and the need for sustenance outweighed the basic skill set of building a fire without an easy spark, and the matches were brought forth.
Who originally figured out the solstice timing?
There are countless festivities around this time every year - almost every culture has some celebration or feast, but who was the first? Early neolithic cultures in England come to mind with their stone circles that have been assumed to be related to the solstices, but the builders of Stonehenge weren't necessarily first, they just built a great huge rock configuration after they had it worked out. What fascinates me is wondering who was the first person to take a moment in their daily drudgery and say, "is it me, or are the days getting shorter?" At what point did homo sapians advance enough to notice that the days quietly got shorter until approximately now and then slowly begin to get longer again?
Every year, as each new season happens, I have to stop and think, "did it happen like this last year?" I marvel anew at the first green sprouts, the warm breeze, the turning of the leaves, the first snow….it is as though I have no memory of the season specifics that I have lived through for the last forty years. And the sudden realization that the nights are getting ever longer catches me completely off guard when I walk outside after work and realize I am standing in twilight. This realization that the days are getting shorter always fills me with a certain amount of gloominess. How much more might the first people have felt this gloom slowly engulfing them? It must have felt like the end of days at times and for many it probably was - starvation was a fairly common form of population control and the cold weather did not make survival any easier.
What I find interesting is that among most of the cultures of the world, this celebration appears to have developed independently of one another. There was no newspaper, no television broadcast to announce a discovery of the day upon which the earth took off again for another 585 million miles around the sun, no universally agreed upon moment of relief in which the world would heave a collective sign and think, "oh, good! We are on course for another year!" And so, each region and culture developed their own set of beliefs and story for why things are the way they are - each slightly different, but with a common thread…..light.
Peace.
