The 2012 Winter Solstice

It is December 21, 2012 and for me, as a modern Pagan woman, it is a high holy day.  In the earth’s northern hemisphere, it is the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year and the longest night of the year.  This day represents the great cosmic drama of light arising out of the darkness, the endless push and pull of opposing forces, the descent and the ascent, and the ever-present law that nothing is static but that all is fluid and in an ever changing state of flux.  Here, even at the bottom of the well when all is at its darkest, the light pierces the depths.  It is for many Pagans a fire festival: we extinguish the fires which, for ancient peoples, were the source of light, heat, and life and in those moments when we are in the dark before we re-light the fires, we feel the sacrifice that this must have represented for those who lived in ancient times.  For a primal moment, we hold our breaths as we await the return of the light and of the heat.  When the flames catch and there is a successful, blaze our relief is expressed in joy and abandon as we celebrate the very life which these flames not only represent, but which frankly ARE.

This year, the Solstice is laden with an ancient mythology and secret of a particular people: the Mayans and their calendar which mysteriously stopped keeping time at this moment.  The ending of a calendar which faithfully kept time since some three thousand years plus before the beginning of the Common Era, has been a subject of much theorizing, dread, anxiety, interpretation and in the end, even derision.  As NASA scientists and others de-bunk the notion that there is a global cataclysmic event which will prove the calendar accurate, modern Mayan shamans (who better to interpret this great work) have told us that this will be a time of great of re-awakening and of transformation.

It sounds remarkably like the words of a song popular in the 1970′s and sung by the Fifth Dimension.  “It is the dawning of the age of Aquarius,” so went the lyrics.  And yes, we are leaving the Piscean Age and entering the Age of Aquarius.

In short, we are stepping over a universal threshold.  We are opening a door and leaving one room, one corner of time and entering another.  We will reach out hands into the unknown darkness and hold our breath as we grope for the light switch, pray that it is there, and turn on the lights in this new space.

Yet, as we leave, I am reminded that one week ago today, the United States has suffered a great tragedy: a tragedy which some say is the greatest singular tragedy of our time since 9/11 and the assassination of President Kennedy.  That national horror was the mass murder of children, teachers, and the mother of the gunman himself in Newtown, Connecticut.  Being who I am, I have been angered, enraged, horrified, saddened, and galvanized by this event.  My anger, rage, and horror give rise to a call for change on many levels.  My sadness has taken me down paths of mourning and howls out to the Goddess whom I serve of “Why?”

I admit to howling for so long now that I have not stopped long enough to listen for an answer.  In the rainy darkness of my Cape Cod Solstice morning (I live in Chatham, Massachusetts, which is the first stop of the East Wind and the second stop of the sunlight on the east coast), I finally kept quiet long enough to allow my Goddess to answer.

I am also going to admit that what I received was not so much an answer as a lecture.

It went something like this: “You speak to me and to all the deities as if We are omnipotent and all powerful.  Like all else in this Universe, We, too are evolving.  This is not to say that We were failing to pay attention a week ago, but the will of Man continues to be a startling thing which even We cannot accurately predict at times.  You continue to be one of the most perplexing of all Our creations.  You truly represent what is true in the Universe: the light and the dark, the good and the bad, the sensible and the senseless, life and death, the beginning and the end.  You create yourselves.  You destroy yourselves.  You are the eternal struggle, but this I will say to you.  Really, what do you expect?  You glorify that which is basest in yourselves and then, you sell it to the young as entertainment.  You ignore sickness of the heart and of the mind and leave it out there to tend for itself.  You turn your backs on one another out of selfishness and a towering self-centeredness which makes you the supreme predatory creatures on the planet.  You love violence and pain and terror and death.  And then, you ask Us: “Why?”  Really?  Look to yourselves and not to Us for answers here.”

I have waited for answers from other religions.  I have heard what I consider to be some heart-stopping stuff.  I have heard that these deaths were punishment for sins; I have heard that these deaths were the work of a god intent on making us see the error of our ways; I have heard that it was obviously the time of these people to die; I have heard that they were in the wrong place at the wrong time; I have heard that we are only people and that we cannot know the will of god; I have heard that we must have faith in the will and works of god; and I have heard that there are no gods, no god whatsoever and thus, who knows why this occurred.

I am sure that somewhere, there are some who believe that these innocents were the sacrifices necessary to bring us into the new age.  Humans have believed in the sacrifice of their fellows for thousands of years.  There is even a god out there who sacrificed His own son in a particularly gruesome manner for the betterment and salvation of all human beings.

Why, then, would the deaths of all these people at this particular time be such a surprise, and why would we question it as we do?

I cannot say that I particularly liked the lecture I received this morning, but I must say, it is no less astounding as everything else that I have heard from people of faith. Frankly, I cannot even say that it makes sense.  However, as my Goddess points out: we are human beings and the most quixotic of all creations out here in the Universe.  So, I am going to listen to Her and instead of howling out to the Universe and the gods which populate it, I am going to look at myself and at my fellow humans and ask this question.  There will probably be no good answer there, either.  As I grope for the light switch which I trust exists for the Age of Aquarius, just as I re-lit the candles in my house this morning, I am going to hope that when the light goes on, that I find two things: an answer and a willingness to work for a solution.

And this should hold true for all with which we humans struggle.  It is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius.  If we cannot pray for it, then let us all work for what that 1970′s song addresses.