Current mood:	pensive
Entry tags:	folklore calendar, musing

Midwinter musings
On Wednesday I went to a winter solstice bonfire. A couple of weeks ago, I sang carols in a church. Last night, I morris danced in the middle of town, in the midst of shoppers who were far too stressed and busy to pay a blind bit of notice.

I am finding all this strangely thought-provoking. Here are my thoughts. No-one has to read them.



I suppose there are many who would look askance at the winter solstice bonfire. At its heart, though, the bonfire was a human affair, not a mystic one. Yes, there was talk of goddess and spirits and the power of the earth. Perhaps those who believed in such things saw this as the central part of the evening, but to me they were just the trappings around a message that could speak to anyone, of any creed. As we stood around the fire, we were urged to think of past regrets and symbolically commit them to the flames. We were urged to look to the future with hope and resolution. We were urged to think how we could change our lives, how we could change the world.

Every year, there’s much debate about the meaning of Christmas. It is the time of celebrate the birth of Christ. It is a time to gather with the family. It is a time to get drunk and eat too much. It is a horrible time, when you rush round getting stressed, trying to buy gifts for people you don’t really know. Christmas is so many things to so many different people, and so much more than that.

Historically, of course, Christmas is only the way it is because it sidled up and took over existing midwinter traditions. Christmas in Britain is a Christian festival, but it is also part of our folklore, our history. It evolves and changes, but it is a thread that has been there for longer than we can know.

So many cultures and religions have a festival of light in the middle of the winter. When the day is at its shortest, it’s only natural to want to assert light. When winter is just past its peak, it’s only natural to look to the spring again. On Wednesday, our bonfire was the only light in the darkness of ancient fields. It was the only heat in the cold. Standing around it, it was very easy to empathise with these ancient men.

It is easy to forget the power that nature has over us. We sit here, proud and confident with our electric light, our computers, our cars. It is never truly dark in a city. Larders are never empty. A harsh winter is an inconvenience or a delight, not a death sentence. Only sometimes do we see how frail our power still is. We can destroy nature, but it can destroy us. We see it in huge and terrible things like tsunamis and hurricanes, but we see it in small things, too, like when a power cut brings all modern life to a halt, and we sit there at a loose end, deprived of all the ways we know of living.

Of course, nobody now believes that darkness will consume them if they do not light a ritual fire at midwinter. No-one believes that storms can be held at bay by propitiating nature spirits. But, standing there, I felt that this was close to the true meaning of Christmas. I felt part of an ancient tradition of midwinter ceremonies – a tradition that encompasses and embraces Christianity, and is embraced by it. It is a time to celebrate the triumph of hope over darkness. It is a time to look towards the spring, and make new resolutions. It is a time to gather with friends and loved ones in a place of light, because fellowship does as much to hold away the darkness as any fire.

There has been much talk in the media lately taking the "Christ" out of Christmas. I am not for one moment advocating that. Christmas was once something else, but now it is Christian. Christianity has shaped our history, our culture, our heritage. Yes, many people in Britain are no longer Christian, either because they hold to some other religion, or because they hold to none, but diversity is not about homogeneity. It is about celebrating mankind in all its wonderful differences. It is Christian services and pagan fires existing side by side, telling the same tale, and neither of them rejecting the other. We are all human. We are all equally puny against the forces of nature. We are all equally prone to making mistakes, or fearing the darkness, or looking to the future with hope, or fear, or resolution.

This is the message I want to see at Christmas. I do not want it to be Christianity versus commercialism and consumerism. Secular does not have to mean soulless. It is possible to be spiritual, without believing in spirits. It is possible to have a moral code without having a deity to enforce it. It is possible to see meaning in a midwinter festival regardless of what god you believe in, or even if you believe in none.

Bonfires and hymns are telling the same tale. I only wish more people would hear it.