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Are you ready for January 1? Maybe you want to spare a thought for what the ancients who named the first month, and made January 1 New Years Day, believed is going on at this time – and for who needs to be celebrated or propitiated at the turning of the year. The Romans gave…

The epics and sacred texts of India are filled with dreams.  The earliest Indian references to dreams, in the Rig Veda (c 1200 BCE) aren’t cheery. They involve scary things – being robbed, being attacked by a wolf, being raped – that can spill over into waking reality. The verses include formulas of protection, to…

The Grinch stole Christmas in Massachusetts – for 22 years. The Puritans banned Christmas and its observance was illegal from 1659 until 1681. Their motivation was stated by the Reverend Increase Mather as follows:  “The early Christians who  first observed the Nativity on December 25 did not do so thinking that Christ was born in…

The winter solstice is one of the great ritual events of the Northern year. At Newgrange, the great megalithic site in Ireland, older than Stonehenge and the pyramids of Egypt, a light box was constructed so that at dawn on the winter solstice the first shaft of sunlight would strike deep into the inner chamber,…
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