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Today (June 21st 2018) is a sacred day. In the northern hemisphere it is the first day of summer, the longest day of the year. I love each season a great deal…but I unabashedly love summer the most. At evening the sky is alive with fireflies and bats. The garden is filled with roses, lilies, and hydrangeas which gleam like particolored stars in the long fluorescent twilight. As the weather warms the oceans, New York City is revealed to be a beach paradise. I live in a West Indian neighborhood and for a season it is like I live on a Caribbean island: everywhere there are stalls filled with tropical fruits, women in bright sarongs, bike rides to the coast and the dulcet songs of the islands lingering in the air as children laugh and cicadas chirp. Summer!
But there is a sadness to the solstice too, which I guess is part of life. The first day of summer is the longest, and from there, the days get shorter and shorter. If the winter solstice is the effective beginning of the year, the summer solstice is an end too. Things have peaked. Even as the nights get hotter they get longer. Before you know it, it will be autumn and then winter again. And all of our days are getting shorter too.
Lately I have felt sad. Year by year my dreams slip further away from the tips of my fingers, and there is no going back to rectify anything, even if I wanted to (and I don’t want to: what else would I be? Some crooked banker who is ruining the world? An ignored ichthyologist discovering minute differences in triggerfish peduncles? The least popular literature professor in a miniscule liberal arts college somewhere?) I have always felt a deep affinity for my nation, but lately I feel like a foreigner…even in Brooklyn, to say nothing of West Virginia! I have always felt that art was important…a guidepost to the numinous in our world of unfeeling stone, but lately it just seems like another empty battle for status.
The summer solstice is a day when you can see the past…and the future too, shimmering like Fata Morgana above the pink ocean waves. It is possible for a second to hear the horse carriages and trolleys passing up old Flatbush…or even to imagine Brooklyn as a patchwork of farms, or a forest with a few hunter-gatherers…or as the terminal moraine of the Wisconsin Ice sheet. Think of it! a wall of ice taller than the skyscrapers was here. Or you can look the other direction and imagine the sun setting beyond cities of tumbled down towers and ruined concrete cenotaphs.
The solstice reminds us of oceans of time all around us. Cronus is standing at our elbow with his scythe and hourglass (or is that bearded old man a druid? Or is it the mirror on my dresser?) We have to catch this fleeting moment as the years wheel away. We have to do something important! But what?
In the northern hemisphere, today is the longest day of the year–the summer solstice! Go out and worship the sun and enjoy summer. To help guide you in your revels, here is a fantasy picture of wild druidic rituals among the megaliths of Stonehenge. I love summer, so this truly is a sacred holiday for me. For readers in the southern hemisphere, congratulations it just gets brighter from here.
Here in the northern hemisphere, we’re moving to the darkest time of the year. I don’t have any white robes or giant megaliths on hand to get us through the solstice, but I thought I might at least cheer up the gloomy darkness with some festive decorations! As in years past, I put up my tree of life filled with animal life of the past and the present (see above). This really is my sacred tree: I believe that all Earth life is part of a larger cohesive gestalt (yet not in a stupid supernatural way–in a real and literal way). Looking at the world in review, I am not sure most people share this perspective, so we are going to be philosophizing more about our extended family in the coming year. For right now though, lets just enjoy the colored lights and the Christmas trilobite, Christmas basilosaurus, and Christmas aardvark.
I also decorated my favorite living tree–the ornamental cherry tree which lives in the back yard. Even without its flowers or leaves it is still so beautiful. I hope the shiny ornaments and toys add a bit of luster to it, but really I know its pulchritude is equally great at the end of January when it is naked even of ornaments.
Here are some Javanese masks which my grandfather bought in Indonesia in the 50s/60s. Indonesian culture is Muslim, but there is a deep foundation of Hinduism (the masks are heroes from the Mahabharata and folk heroes of medieval Indonesia). Decorating this uneasy syncretism up for Christmas is almost nonsensical–and yet look at how good the combination looks. Indeed, there might be another metaphor here. We always need to keep looking for beautiful new combinations.
Finally here is a picture of the chandelier festooned with presents and hung with a great green bulb. The present may be dark, but the seasons will go on shifting and there is always light, beauty, and generosity where you make it. I’m going to be in and out, here, as we wrap up 2016 and make some resolutions for 2017. I realize I have been an inconsistent blogger this year, but I have been doing the best I can to keep exploring the world on this space and that will continue as we go into next year. I treasure each and every one of you. Thank you for reading and have a happy solstice.
Knight Town (Wayne Ferrebee, 2015, colored pencils and ink)
It is already the winter solstice. What with the Christmas rush and year-end business at work I have not had time to pick out a suitable theme for the longest night of the year. But my subconscious has not been so quiescent. Here are the three most recent drawings in my little book. I suddenly notice that each of them takes place at night. Above is a knight in jaunty paisley wandering the streets of a nocturnal city. Dinosaurs grapple as a glowing lizard glides down toward the warrior. A little glowing plant man and a strange luminous crystal add interest.
Bar in Alphabet City (Wayne Ferrebee, 2015, colored pencil and ink)
Here is a scene at a bar in alphabet city. The patrons were jostling and squiggling pretty vigorously (which made them hard to draw), but I think I caught the milieu.
Fallow Hill (Wayne Ferrebee, 2015, colored pencil and ink)
Last is my most recent piece, which somehow looks like it something from a heavy metal album. I have no idea what is going on here. Demons and ghosts are gathering around a terrible haunted face growing up out of the fallow fields. A hellish glow pervades the horizon. No more horror novels before bedtime. The great thing about the winter solstice is that it will keep getting lighter from this point on. Although admittedly the coldest times of winter lie before us, the darkest times are passing. And they aren’t even that bad…well, not as bad as this horrible undead scarecrow thing.
Happy Summer Solstice*! Also happy Father’s Day to all of the dads out there! Ferrebeekeeper doesn’t usually publish on Sundays, but because it is a special day, here is a celebratory image of an ancient druid with a golden sickle and a megalith. This is a perfect image for the first day of summer, however it is somewhat more ambiguous as a father’s day image… Still, I feel that it has some paternal magic, and it is certainly better than neckties and golf-themed art. My own father would probably prefer an archer, but I got a bunch of cartoon spies and elfin cosplayers when I googled that…so the wise druid elder will have to do.
I am so excited for summer! Let’s make it a great one!
*Actual solstice may vary by hemisphere.
Today is June 21st , which, in the northern hemisphere–where the majority of humankind lives–is the summer solstice. This is the longest day of the year (and the shortest night). Rejoice! Now is the time of light and warmth.
Druids!
Of course it would hardly be the solstice if we didn’t talk about druids, but here, suddenly things get tricky, because, despite their long-standing popularity, we don’t actually know very much about druids. There are no writings left to us from actual druids and although we have some archeological finds from Iron-age Western Europe which relate to the religions of the time, we do not have any objects which are directly connected with druids. Some scholars question whether they ever even existed.
What is known about druids, therefore comes from Roman and Greek writers (including no less a person than Julius Caesar). Druids were the priestly caste of polytheistic Celtic society. Druid lore was passed down orally and it was no mean feat to become one of these elite priests: it could take decades to master the complicated plant lore, ceremonial forms, and other esoteric druid knowledge.
Druids are associated with sacred groves and augury. Roman writers also believed that druids practiced human sacrifice. Julius Caesar wrote of druids placing prisoners in huge men made of wicker and then burning the victims to death. However druid-sympathizers (which is apparently a real thing) dispute this idea and assert that Roman sources were guilty of cultural propaganda. In fact, an even more extreme faction of scholars asserts that druids were entirely made up by Romans as a sort of fantasy of the other in order to highlight Roman superiority. To me this seems like an unwarranted assumption: the concept of the hard headed Julius Caesar making up fantastical stories to drive home Roman superiority (which was an indisputable fact to him) seems suspect, and there is archaeological evidence to support a tradition of human sacrifice, although it too is controversial.
“The Victim” An Illustration by AB Houghton for Tennyson’s poem (engraving,1868).
The only description of a druid ceremony comes from Book XVI of Natural History by Pliny the Elder. This single highly colorful passage is responsible for most of the popular image of druids. Pliny describes
“The Druids hold nothing more sacred than mistletoe and a tree on which it is growing … when it [mistletoe] is discovered it is gathered with great ceremony Hailing the moon in a native word that means ‘healing all things,’ they prepare a ritual sacrifice and banquet beneath a tree and bring up two white bulls, whose horns are bound for the first time on this occasion. A priest arrayed in white vestments climbs the tree and with a golden sickle cuts down the mistletoe, which is caught in a white cloak. Then finally they kill the victims, praying to god to render his gift propitious to those whom he has bestowed it. They believe that mistletoe given in drink will impart fertility to any animal that is barren, and that it is an antidote for all poisons.”
Whether he heard about it and thought it sounded neat or just made it up is anyone’s guess.
Neodruids (hahahaha)
So wait, what does any of this have to do with the solstice? Why are druids associated to an astronomical event in the way that Santa goes with Christmas? Druids became greatly popular during the 18th and 19th century Celtic revival. As romantics and neo-pagans invented rituals they looked towards the Roman sources (and certain Irish Christian sources which set up druids as being the opposite of Christian saints). Druids became associated with the great stone monoliths such as Stonehenge, and, since those ancient constructions are focused on the solar calendar, it was logical to assume that druids were too.
I’m sorry there was no post yesterday–I was busy trimming my holiday tree. Tree worship was a common custom in many ancient cultures from China to Egypt to the Hebrews (and it is an underlying topic of this blog). Pagan Europeans—particularly Scandinavians and Celts also venerated evergreen trees as a symbol of undying life.
To symbolize life, I decorated my tree as a tree of life with all sorts of different animals from different epochs of life. Looking at the detail photos you will notice familiar animals from past Ferrebeekeeper posts. The mollusks are represented by the squid and the octopus. There is a pangolin, a walrus, a rabbit, and a muskox, as well as a variety of other mammals. Best of all, you will notice a tom turkey!
It took a while to gather all the different toy animals and put screw eyes and string on them, but I think you will agree the results were worth it! My Christmas tree actually does represent my feelings about what is sacred and numinous in our world of amazing living things. Hopefully it can get my friends and me through the dark yule/solstice season. Merry Christmas and seasons greetings to everyone out there! I hope you get the gifts you want and spend the season with the people whom you care for.
Les Saturnales (Antoine-François Callet)
Today is the Feast of Saturn! In Ancient Rome this holiday was officially celebrated on December 17 (XVI Kal. Jan.) and it initiated the multiple day festival of Saturnalia—the biggest holiday of the Roman Year. The Roman god Saturn was based on the Greek deity Cronus. Although the Romans recognized that Saturn was a deposed ruler, a murderer, and a cannibal, Saturn was worshiped in Rome as an agricultural deity whose reign had been a golden age of abundance and innocence. Saturn’s time had been one of gold–an age when people were naked, free, and kind. Jupiter’s age was one of iron when all men struggled greedily against one another–an age of wars, lawyers, oppression, and struggle.
Saturnalia was therefore a time to return to the imagined happiness of the past. The cult statue of Saturn was freed from the shackles with which he was bound during the rest of the year and filled with olive oil (for the figure was hollow). Schools and offices were closed so that special sacrifices could be made. Great feasts were held and small presents were exchanged–particularly earthenware figurines called sigillaria and candles (which were a sort of symbol of the holiday and represented the return of light after the short dark days of the solstice). There was a special seasonal market, the sigillaria. People decorated their houses and themselves with greenery and garlands. Best of all, Rome’s famously rigid discipline was set aside during Saturnalia. To quote the online Encyclopedia Romana:
During the holiday, restrictions were relaxed and the social order inverted. Gambling was allowed in public. Slaves were permitted to use dice and did not have to work. Instead of the toga, less formal dinner clothes (synthesis) were permitted, as was the pileus, a felt cap normally worn by the manumitted slave that symbolized the freedom of the season. Within the family, a Lord of Misrule was chosen. Slaves were treated as equals, allowed to wear their masters’ clothing, and be waited on at meal time in remembrance of an earlier golden age thought to have been ushered in by the god. In the Saturnalia, Lucian relates that “During My week the serious is barred; no business allowed. Drinking, noise and games and dice, appointing of kings and feasting of slaves, singing naked, clapping of frenzied hands, an occasional ducking of corked faces in icy water—such are the functions over which I preside.”
Various cults celebrated their mysteries during this time of year. People from all walks of life lost themselves in uninhibited drinking, merrymaking, and fertility rituals. Many Romans were born 9 months after Saturnalia (which would be approximately August 22nd on our calendar).
Roman painting (Unknown Artist, Villa dei Misteri in Pompeii, Italy)
Saturnalia had started in Rome in 217 BCE after Rome had suffered a series of crushing defeats at the hands of the Carthaginians (and the citizens needed a morale booster), but the deep roots of the holiday stretch back to prehistory. Additionally the various people whom Rome had conquered all had solstice rituals of their own–which became incorporated into Saturnalia. The year-end ceremonies of the Gauls and Celts focused on evergreen trees particularly the yew. In Roman Egypt, the ancient deities were still worshiped (indeed, worship of Isis spread through the Roman world). During the solstice time Egyptians celebrated how their greatest god, Osiris, had returned to life after being murdered by Set. Strangely the Egyptians too focused their resurrection rituals around a tree–albeit the palm tree. Rome’s mightiest neighbor, the Persian Empire, burnt great fires for Mithras, a deathless god born in a cave on December 25th. The Mithraic mysteries were particularly popular in the Roman military (although many of the details about the cult are unknown to us). Across the complicated cosmopolitan Roman world, people of all classes and faiths dedicated themselves to pleasure and to getting through the cold darkness to a new year. Catullus called the time of Saturnalia, “optimo dierum” (the best of days) and that was definitely true in an empire which was otherwise beset by political unrest, war, agricultural failure, greed, injustice, and decline.
On an unrelated note, I will be away for a week to celebrate Christmas. I might post some things here or I might be too busy eating, relaxing, and exchanging small presents with loved ones. In the mean time I wish the very happiest of holidays to all of my family, friends, readers, and, in fact, everyone.
ferrebeekeeper 