Winter Solstice

Pic: Alan Betson's stunning photo of the Winter Solstice dawn sunlight shining into the Newgrange Cairn. https://www.facebook.com/dublinwintersolstice/

Are you a Cristian Tim?

Do you mean Christian Cath or something else? It's always good to know the sun is 'returning' isn't it which of course is the significance of the winter solstice? People existed on earth many thousands of years before Christ. They all had brains and therefore mental processes and resultant beliefs trying to make sense of themselves and their surroundings. Not until relatively recently - around five thousand years ago - do these start to become discernible to us in what we recognise as 'civilizations' for which heavy reliance has to be placed on surviving archaeology in structures and written script. The above is a remnant of a largely extinct 'Celtic' one that in pre-Roman times appears to have dominated swathes of Europe. Sadly because it was largely verbal, what the Celts believed has to be inferred from the artefacts and structures that remain, such as the one above. We have the Romans to thank for obliterating it, notably in France with the campaign against the Gauls in Julius Caesar's Gallic wars around 50 BC and in Britain against the Druids post invasion culminating in the Anglesey massacre in around 60 AD. A contemporary account states, "A force was next set over the conquered, and their groves, devoted to inhuman superstitions, were destroyed. They deemed it indeed a duty to cover their altars with the blood of captives and to consult their deities through human entrails." The effect was to destroy the Priestly Class and with it the verbal history, so we have to surmise their beliefs from what remains but I think it reasonable to infer that much may have been shared with other, principally Egyptian, civilizations of the time. The sun and moon dominated the night sky and were afforded divine characteristics. The return of the sun, on which survival absolutely depended was not a given, hence the importance of the Winter Solstice, which marked the end of the retreat and hopefully the point of return. Fire was the nearest thing to the heat of the sun, and so it was encouraged to return with much feasting and celebration no doubt around huge blazes. Evidence of this has been provided at Stonehenge for example as is the structure referred to in the photograph. With the arrival of the Judean/Christian religion elements of the old were adopted and built on, both in structures - many churches are on pre-Christian holy sites - and in the ritual and ceremony of the Church. Even the return of the Sun is replicated in the return of the Son of God with its roots in Egyptian mythology of  the sun god Ra and the struggles of the gods Osiris, Isis and Horus against the disruptive god Set. Yes both the winter solstice and the celebration of Christmas as we know it, have very deep and profound psychological and cultural roots.