The 6th Day of Yuletide

The Rebirth of The Light
or The Divine Child
The Virgin Birth or Pathogenesis

Anthropologists would have us believe that in times long past the people believed that the sun had died and didn’t really believe that light would return, that the days would grow longer again, that Spring, Summer, and Autumn would glide into another winter. On and on into infinity. As if they hadn’t long recognized the ways of the sun and moon and stars, the ways the Earth burgeons, births, releases, and rests. I’m not sure I buy that part but I do love the stories of the rebirth of the Light, of all of the ways the Sun is celebrated back at this time of year.

Who gives birth to the Light? The Virgin Mother. She does this in an act called Pathogenesis and Mother Mary, who birthed Jesus or The Christ, was not the first or last to lay claim to this. In fact, even now, animals do it all the time. Bees create an emergency queen and she lays drone eggs without ever being inseminated. Sharks do it, too.

Who are the other mothers who gave birth without being inseminated by a man? Here’s a short list: Rhea Silvia, mother of Romulus and Remus; Net, mother of Ra, the Egyptian Sun god (birthing the Sun); Isis birthed Horus without the help of male; Nana birthed Attis who went on to be killed and then resurrected; Persephone birthed Jason, of Jason and the Argonauts; Semele birthed Dionysus, the god of wine and music; and Perictione, mother of Plato, was also a virgin. Plato had no earthly father. It’s also known that Mother Mary herself was a daughter of Pathogenesis. Her mother Anna became pregnant without the assistance of any earthly male.

Romans celebrated the birth of their adopted sun god, Sol Invictus, on December 25th. He came to Rome from Syria. Constantine, who did so many things that have carried through to now declared the date of December 25th to celebrate the birth of the Christ child who was most likely born in the Springtime, under the sun sign of Aries, as that was the timing planned for the birthing of Kings. May other holy births were celebrate around this time of year.

At this time of year we honor the Sun, or the Son, as symbol of Light reborn. This light is not something to be projected outwardly but to be honored within our own hearts. We have plenty of time before Spring in which to sink deeply into the rich and fecund darkness as the seed of our own light kindles.

An Advent or Solstice Story

Imagine living in a pre-electrical light world. A world where there was only the light of the fire, some beeswax candles which were precious and used sparingly.

There is a small roundhouse sitting in a palisaded village. The roof is thatched. The sides are logs standing vertically. There is a firepit in the center of the roundhouse. It is daytime but the light is thin, the sky hangs with thick clouds and the scant sun shines white and blue on the snow. There’s a wind and while it isn’t strong or gusty, it still bites through the woolen tunics and capes of those out in the day tending animals, bucketing water from the central well, or grabbing wood or peats for the fire.

Inside the roundhouse the family work at a variety of tasks. Small woodworking things, a girl, maybe 10 or 11 years old, has a distaff looped with roving and her spindle as she works away making yarn or thread. The loom is pushed aside, quiet now. It’s too cold to leave the door open to the light and weaving is best done with light to see by. There’s a pot of barley pottage at the edge of the fire. The mother sits on the earthen floor, nursing her youngest babe.

Sitting on a stool is the mother’s mother and she calls the children to her. The girl puts her spindle down gladly. The other children, 3 more, all wearing woolens in shades of brown and grey, gather close to the grandmother. Her gray hair is braided in one long braid which lays over her left shoulder. Her face is lined softly. Her eyes are dark, brown, and sparkle in the firelight highlighting the smile lines around her eyes.

Grandmother says, ‘These are the longest, darkest days of winter. Here we huddle beside the fire, seeking warmth and light. The winter is long, with long nights yet to come. I will fill those nights with stories for you. Stories of your ancestors, stories of myself as a child right here playing and exploring and working the same way as all of you. Tonight, though, I have a special story.”

The grandmother pulls from her lap a small branch of pine, and three tufts of wool that are roughly shaped light a rabbit, a mouse, and a gnome. She places these on the floor and around them a few pieces of twig and leave, some small stones, and in the center of those she places the stub of a candle with just a little light left to burn and a small bed of moss with a smooth stone lying in the center.

She says:
Softly in the earthly darkness
Seeds are stirring towards the light
In the earth the seeds lie dreaming
Nestled under crystal white

When in winter’s deepest darkness
There came a shining light…(she lights the candle)

Then she and the children sing:
From Heaven’s arch so high…
From Heaven’s arch so high,
A little Light draws nigh.
Shines so bright,
In the night,
All the children take delight…

A little hare hops nigh
And holds his head up high
Stops to hear, stands quite near,
Wonders what is happening here

The little mouse…he scurries from his frosty house
Stops to hear, stands quite near….

Then came the gnomes, the plants and the stones…
All the creatures drawing near
Stop to hear
And wonder what is happening here

The snow fell softly in the night
And all the world was crystal white
The angels from the stars looked down
On Mother Earth’s new shining gown.

And shining ever clearer
The light shines softly nearer
Shines so bright
In the night
So that all may take delight.

And so it was that this tiny light that shone on the darkest night grew in the hearts of all people and filled them with peace and joy.”

As the grandmother told the story, the children moved the little objects around, mirroring her words in the vignet of creatures, mostly imaginary, before the fire.

In this way they took in the Spirit of the Season through connection to family and through story and movement and were able to bring it forward on a soul level for generation after generation.

 

CREDITS:
I received the part of this story that are the Grandmother’s word from a Waldorf yahoo group many years ago. The only credit I have is as follows: This story was told to me by the women who ran the Morning Garden Playgroup program at the Waldorf School of Orange County. If you know the author’s name, please share it with me so that I might properly credit her or him.