"To see a candle's light, one must take it to a dark place."
Ursula Le Guin
Nearly all cultural and faith traditions have some version of a festival of lights. Light brings cheer and comfort during the winter with its shorter days. In a time that can be happy but stressful, and an emotional struggle for some, traditions of light can be like a shot of dopamine, a neurohormone of well-being.
Holiday lights are a joyful reminder that Christmas is coming. Strings of lights bring us the same pleasure as a cozy fireplace or an outdoor firepit. For many of us, Christmas light traditions evoke childhood memories. Brightly colored lights outside homes and strung across main streets boost our mood and create a festive spirit. An evening walk through a neighborhood filled with holiday lights is a great way to get fresh air, exercise, and connect with others. Playing holiday music while stringing a tree with lights is comforting, a ritual pause in an otherwise busy time of year. Sitting by a Christmas tree with the lights on at the end of the day is comforting.
In December, other festivals of light traditions are Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and Solstice. Hanukkah is a Jewish celebration of religious freedom; the holiday commemorates the rededication of a temple over 2000 years ago after a successful uprising. A nine-branched menorah celebrates the holiday with candles meant to burn all night. Every evening for eight nights, families sing blessings and light a candle, adding one each night as the week passes. In addition to lighting candles and saying blessings, they eat foods fried in oil, an element of worship, such as potato latkes and jelly doughnuts.
Kwanzaa originated in the 1960s and celebrates African and African American history, community, family, and core values. A candle is lit each day for seven days, corresponding to a value such as unity, collective work, creativity, and self-determination. The candle colors are black, red, and green. The black candle is in the center and represents the people. The red candle signifies the importance of the struggle. And the green candle represents the future, forged out of righteous persistence for justice. On the seventh day, there is a celebration filled with food, music, dancing, and singing.
Tomorrow, December 21st, is the Winter Solstice, also known as Yule. One of the most ancient winter celebrations, it signifies the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere when the sun's path is the furthest away. The Solstice festival marks the end of the harvest season, staving off the dark and helping prepare for the long winter ahead.
Celebrated by Pagans, an earth-based faith, for thousands of years, Yule festivals were first written about in the fifth century by Germanic and Nordic Pagans. One of the traditions was burning a large log for the festival's duration. The Yule log, sometimes an entire tree, was carefully chosen and brought into the house with fanfare.
Christian denominations later adopted the practice of lighting the Yule log and imbued it with their meaning, representing Jesus as the world's light. This tradition is among several Nordic Pagan rituals incorporated into Christmas traditions, after which Christians altered the meanings to fit their belief system. Today, Solstice traditions often combine Pagan, Indigenous, and Christian practices.
Modern Winter Solstice traditions around the world are celebratory, peaceful, and communal. They are associated with renewal, symbolic of the sun's death and rebirth. In England, people gather at dawn at Stonehenge to witness the beauty of the sun rising through the stones. In Scandinavia, the Saint Lucia Day Festival merges Winter Solstice and Christmas in a celebration with bonfires and a procession of young women wearing white robes and wreaths of candles on their heads. In Guatemala, the solstice feast involves bright costumes, fireworks, and parades. In Vancouver, British Columbia, there is a Winter Lantern Solstice Festival with processions of lanterns, music, and fire performances throughout the city. In China, Solstice is celebrated as the ancient Dongzhi Festival, when families gather and eat rice balls to mark yin and yang energy – the dark, cold night and the coming warmth.
On the longest night of the year, may we feel the warmth of light and love within and around us. Whatever our personal traditions, let's honor the commonalities of this season that connect us. May we align with nature's cycles, the quiet and stillness of the dark winter season, to nurture the energy to come with the longer, brighter days ahead.