The Shortest Day

[lupestripe]

It's Yule for the Pagans amongst us or for those living in a more secular world, the less punchy "Shortest Day". If you celebrate Yule then I hope you have a good one and don't feel to disheartened by heartless card companies using the phrase "Have a Cool Yule" in their Christmas Cards. It completely misses the point and is also a pretty dreadful rhyme. To me, it's just one of life's little annoyances.

I always see 21 December as a watershed as it means that the days will now start to get longer again. Granted we won't really see its effects until the end of January but after the miserable darkness of the last two months, today being the Shortest Day is something to be thankful for. To me it symbolises hope and I am hopeful of brighter days to come. I'm sick of waking up when it's dark and feeling tired for most of the day simply because there's a blanket of murk that is shrouding the world.

Roll on Summer! Turn up the central heating!

Comments

[spargue.livejournal.com]

According to Egypto-babalonian traditions december 25 is the day that god's sun is reborn.
It's todo with the fact that on 21st the sun is at it's lowist point and it stays at that point for 3 days, on the 25th the suns position has moved north. If you studdy peoples beliefs at a time before the christian movement and the dark ages, you see how they just steel everything.

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

December 25 was Saturnalia in Roman times which is where the idea of the gift giving comes from. Whether the Christians used this date to convert the Romans from their own belief system to Christianity is a moot point. Is that what Saturanlia is about, and is it related to it.

Egyptian/Babylonian traditions pre-date Roman and I've studied a little about both cultures but I didn't know that. Thanks for pointing it out to me :)

[spargue.livejournal.com]

If you look at important religious figures of Europe and the middle east who are not Jesus you see a lot of similarity, most notably the born on DEC 25th

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

Could you give me some examples? I find this very interesting.