OPINION: Alaska’s midwinter solstice brings us together

“In the bleak midwinter, Frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron, Water like a stone, Snow had fallen, Snow on snow, In the bleak midwinter, Long ago.”

Drop the “Long ago,” and this first stanza of Christina Rossetti’s 1872 poem is a good description of the midwinter we are experiencing here and now in Alaska -- though an additional “Snow on snow” might be needed to recognize recent effects of climate change.

The way mankind has experienced and responded to the “bleak midwinter” is ageless. Humans have created light to bring back the light and have done so with celebratory events. You may have had other thoughts as you put on the holiday lights, trudging through snow, and freezing your fingers. But, by adding light you were responding to the growing cold and darkness in a way that people throughout the world are doing and have done for centuries. Lighting candles, burning logs, blanketing our cities with colored lights are all ageless traditions.

Since the time when people did not know about the rotation of the Earth and the sun, the shortening of the daylight must have caused fear and worry. Primitive people would have watched in dread as the sun’s presence shortened each day. The sun was heat and life. If the sun left, there could be only darkness and death. Each winter, hunter-gatherers must have starved and died as edible plants perished and birds and animals hibernated or migrated to find warmth.

But at midwinter, the sun seemingly stood still for a few days, and then slowly, miraculously, the daylight increased and hope returned. The sun gave promise that the warmth and fertility of the summer would be renewed, and life could continue. So ancient and traditional celebrations at midwinter are elemental and strong. They are a celebration of life itself and of the return of the source and symbol of life, the sun and its heat and daylight.

In different lands and cultures, people have shaped their celebrations in different ways, but all people have much in common, and the similarities of man’s response to nature at midwinter are striking. As the days start to lengthen, celebrations of returning light express joy at the rebirth of light and the resulting continuance of life. Fire, symbolizing the heat and light of the sun, is often used.

For Christians, lights on an evergreen tree, lights outside the home, and a fire in the fireplace are common symbols of the joy of Christmas. A central feature of the Jewish celebration of Hanukkah, which started on Dec. 18 this year, is the lighting of nine candles for eight days, starting with two on the first to include the “shamash” or servant candle.

In the Far East, before the time of Christ, Persians worshiped the sun as God. Dec. 25 was celebrated as the birth of the sun because daylight begins to lengthen, and the sun’s power increases from that midwinter turning point.

Farther north, the people of ancient Europe burned fires at midwinter and midsummer to celebrate the sun’s waxing and waning. At midwinter, the ceremonial fire was a Yule log burned in each home to worship the return of the sun. Because the increase of daylight was a return of life, the ashes of the Yule log were scattered on the fields to bring back their fertility and fruitfulness. Sparks from the Yule log meant more animals would be born on the farm. Again, man celebrated the sun’s return as a rebirth of hope and joy at continued life.

Especially in northern climates where the turn of the seasons is dramatic, the decline of daylight at midwinter has had a strong effect on human life. Not long ago in Utqiagvik on the North Slope, the Inupiaq community celebrated the return of the sun after long days of darkness with a huge bonfire in the center of the village. People drove the evil spirits of death and darkness into the fire and felt reassured that life would continue. Utqiagvik, incidentally, translates into “the place where the bear sleeps.” If a bear sleeps, it is hibernating and will wake up in the spring.

The holiday spirit in our country today is part of our shared humanity. As we enjoy this season, it is good to think that people all over the world are also celebrating the return of the sun and doing so in much the same way by creating light.

Let the joy of this season remind us of our shared humanity and increase our goodwill toward each other.

Janet McCabe and her husband David came to Alaska in 1964. She is a graduate of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and a member of Alaska Common Ground and Commonwealth North.

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