Yuletide

Season's Greetings! Happy Holidays if you prefer- the truth is that everyone has their own way of celebrating the Winter Solstice. Christians celebrate the Nativity, Jews celebrate the Festival of Lights, and Pagans celebrated the renewal of the Sun and the cycle of the seasons. The truth is, that every faith has a common traditions and themes for this part of the year, so why is it so special to so many people?

The Holly King

Humans have always celebrated this time of year as a time of survival; as the darkest part of the year they remembered that even in the darkest time the cycle of life goes on and summer will always come again. Many people acknowledged these days (Every tradition acknowledges the celebration as a seasonal series of days rather than just one) as a time of thanksgiving, of sharing bounty in the form of gifts, and feasting in families and communities.


Neolithic peoples were thought to have built megalithic stone monuments to acknowledge the solstices and measure time through a complex calendar. Ancient Greeks and Romans worshiped Bacchus on Lenaia or Brumalia ("Shortest Day)as a period of feasting and merriment, celebrated in conjunction with Saturnalia (Kronia in Greek)- one of the chief Roman holidays which included a series of social and religious rituals similar to later European Christmas festivities. This holiday invoked the agricultural god of time Saturn, who represented old age, winter, darkness, and earthly bounty as a renewal of physical matter that dies during this time.  He is often characterized by his sickle, which portrays his role as a reaper or Father Time as he is later known as in associated with the Greek Chronos (Chronos= Time  in Greek).

Saturnus

Saturn is one of a series of elderly gods who makes up the archetype of Father Christmas who later becomes the Santa Clause in the Christmas tradition. This elderly deity is the polar opposite of the infant born on the winter solstice who represents the Sun and offers hope out of the darkness. This younger god is known as Mithras or Sol Invictus by the Roman Period and becomes the archetype for images of Christ. Mithras and Sol Invictus are sun gods with astrological associations but are also bringers of light, guidance, and prosperity to mankind whose birth is celebrated on the solstice in the midst of the winter festival celebrations.

Christ as Sol Invictus- Tomb of the Julii, St Peter's

In Germanic countries, the solstice season was known as Yule- again the celebration of the winter as a time of bounty associated with the hunt and winter animals such as deer. The god of this season is Odin, another prototype for Father Christmas depicted as an elderly prophet and also king of the Norse gods. In later Neopagan traditions, Celtic gods and goddesses were incorporated into the Yuletide and a new mythology was constructed. Some of these myths associate the "dakness" during Yule as the last of the triple Goddesses (Youth, Mother, and Crone) and the divine child of light (the Sun) as the offspring that comes from the darkness.

The Oak King and the Holly King

Another myth is of the Oak King and the Holly King; these are gods who rule the two halves of the year. The Oak King triumphs on the summer solstice, reigns during the warmer half of the year, and is an archetype who represents light; the Holly King triumphs on the winter solstice, reigns during the darker half of the year, and is the archetype of darkness. These gods represent a type of yin and yang duality that is associated with the Celtic god Cerunnos, the horned lord of the hunt, who is the combination of both of these characters.


Overall, the season of the Winter Solstice is a time of both light and dark. One half of the year ends and the other begins in a dance of dualism. Today, the holidays are festivals where we light candles to combat the darkness, celebrate a divine birth, or are thankful for what we have- just like our ancestors before us.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Ankh Wedja Seneb
(Life Prosperity Health)

Leif Lauderdale

I -- am a librarian...

"Look, I... I may not be an explorer, or an adventurer, or a treasure-seeker, or a gunfighter, Mr. O'Connell, but I am proud of what I am.  I -- am a librarian..."

Librarians in modern society have a very specific image, and as a current student of Library Science, I just want to dispel some of the views that I have encountered and bring up some interesting topics about... what else... LIBRARIANS!


In contemporary media, its easy to stereotype, but I personally prefer the bad-ass version of librarians as having a super-human thirst for knowledge and learning. Nobody is a better badass example of this than the unassuming Evie from the Mummy film series. Also as an aspiring Egyptologist I look up to her in more ways than one.

I also thought it was interesting that one of the main characters of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer television series was also a librarian who also practiced magic, and was therefore a boundless resource on the supernatural. Might I mention that Batgirl, Barbara Gordon, was also a librarian!

There is also a long history of ancient libraries from the very inception of writing in Sumer. These included not only archives but also works of law, history, religion, commerce, and a whole range of subjects. In Egypt, the medium of writing moved from clay tablets (like in Mesopotamia) to papyrus scrolls, so much more complex system of storage was needed. Egyptian libraries were located in temples and were referred to as the Per Medjat or "House of Books."

Specific gods and goddesses were the patrons of these establishments, but none were more important that Thoth and Seshat. Seshat names "The Scribess" and she was associated with architecture, astronomy, and mathematics- and is the prototype of the female profession of librarianship. Her attributes show her holding a palm branch recording the regnal years of the king, a leopard robe associated with priesthood and the night sky, and above her head is an unconfirmed symbol of either a reed or a star. Thoth, although not specifically associated with libraries like Seshat, was also her consort and in charge of writing, magic, and academic subjects.


In the Hellenistic world, libraries became the cultural centers cities, such as the great Library of Alexandria in Egypt, which contained every great work produced in the Hellenistic world begun by Ptolemy I. There were also libraries in Pergamum, Athens, and Rome which collected records, literature, and knowledge passed down through classical antiquity.

In the Hellenistic world, the patron goddess of libraries was Athena (Minerva)goddess of knowledge, or the personification of wisdom herself Sophia. Hermes, like Thoth with whom he is associated with in the Egyptian pantheon, is the inventor of the word and oration (thus his epithet of Logios) but is not associated with libraries per se. It seems that in the ancient world (and today), male wisdom took the action of oration, writing, and physical active participation of creating knowledge. Female goddesses therefore were the passive guardians of knowledge created by the male figure.

βιβλιοθηκάριος

Ankh Wedja Seneb
(Life Prosperity Health)

Leif Lauderdale