Winter Blessings and Beauties, Day 48: Saturnalia

 

The Roman Festival of Saturnalia was celebrated from 17th-23rd December, with feasting, gift-giving and much merry-making. It was a time when normal social conventions were turned on their head - gambling was allowed and slaves were waited on by their owners. A 'King of the Saturnalia', was elected by drawing lots and would preside over the festivities, issuing arbitrary whimsical orders which had to be obeyed by his 'subjects'.

It's believed that some of the customs associated with later European celebrations of a Winter festival have been influenced by the Saturnalia festivities, including that of electing a 'Lord of Misrule'.

To this day, the days leading up to the Winter Solstice and Christmas have a quality of 'time out of time' mixed in with a celebratory atmosphere. Schools wind down for the holidays and there is often more fun than learning going on; a festive air pervades the workplace and there are office parties, and meals out; the darkness is lit by a myriad of fairy lights; people frantically shop and prepare for feasting and merrymaking with loved ones. There is a sense of anticipation, and to a certain extent the usual rules are suspended. 

Isn't it interesting how our modern celebrations so closely mirror many of the ways the Romans celebrated their mid-winter festival 2,000 years ago? Is it because the Romans set a template that has been followed down the years? Or is it human nature to feel the need to cut loose, let our hair down and light up the darkness with a big party? Or is it just the tension between the darkest, slowest, quietest time of the year crashing up against our impatient desire for the return of the light?  Personally I suspect it's a little of each. 

Winter Blessings amd Beauties, Day 48

Saturnalia

Take a few moments to centre yourself. Breathe slowly and deeply and feel your way into the energy of midwinter. How does the contradiction between the slow, deep rhythms of the sleeping earth, and the excited, jubilant energies of the human world as it gears up for midwinter festivities in anticipation of the turning of the darkness feel? It feels to me as if the two opposing forces coming together generates a charge of intoxicating energy. Is it any wonder that the King of the Saturnalia and the Lord of Misrule revel in their ability to turn convention on its head and undermine the usual order of things?  They are the perfect incarnation of the paradoxical midwinter energies in this liminal time, when winter approaches its peak - which is simultaneously the point at which it begins to wane.