Pagan Everyday - Midsummer by Barbara Ardinger, PhD

Sonnenwenda

The German word Sonnenwenda means “solstice.” Solstice comes from two Latin words: sol, “sun,” and sistit, “stands.” On the day of the solstice, the sun seems to stand still, not as it crosses the sky, but as it rises and sets in the same place.

The solstices were tracked by ancient civilizations. About 2200 B.C.E., astronomers in China calculated the summer solstice, which they said marked the earth’s yin energy. The precise moment of the solstice is often marked by the appearance of the rising sun shining upon a ceremonial structure like Stonehenge or illuminating a marker like the Sun Dagger in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. As Europe became Christianized, St. John’s Day (the birthday of John the Baptist, June 24) was added to the calendar so the people could celebrate without seeming to be following pagan customs. Among the Germanic tribes, the summer solstice was celebrated on June 25.

A proclamation of 1653 given by the town council of Nuremberg, Germany, says that “wood hath been gathered by young folk, and thereupon the so-called sonnenwendt or zimmet fire kindled and thereat winebibbing, dancing about said fire, leaping over the same … and all manner of superstitious work [is] carried on.” Recognizing that they’re outnumbered by merry-makers, the town fathers conclude that they “neither can nor ought to forbear or do away with all such unbecoming superstition, paganism, and peril of fire on this coming day.”

Reader, if you haven’t already done so, light your midsummer fire or roll your sun-wheel down a hill. In earlier times, the sun-wheel was lit from the fire, but let us not burn any hillsides. Just as the sun can scorch the earth, so can fire, sun’s substitute, burn us. Leap over the fire carefully. Let no one be burnt, today or any other day.

July 4: Libertas, Lady Liberty

Libertas (Freedom), Selena Fox write in an article on the Circle web site, is another of the Roman civic goddesses, a sister to Concordia and Pax. Although the Romans hardly ever experienced freedom, civic harmony, or peace, they always kept their eyes on the possibilities. Libertas was sometimes merged with Jupiter, sometimes with Feronia, who was originally an Etruscan or Sabine goddess of agriculture or fire. In Rome, Feronia became the goddess of freed slaves.

On Roman coins and other artifacts, Libertas is shown as a matron in flowing dress and wearing either a wreath of laurel leaves or a tall pilleus, which is a “liberty cap” that looks like a witch hat without the brim. She holds either a liberty pole (vindicta) or a spear, and sometimes there is a cat at her feet.

Libertas became Lady Liberty during the American and French Revolutions, and she is the subject of numerous 19^th-century paintings. To celebrate the repeal of the Stamp Act in 1766, Paul Revere created an obelisk with an image of Libertas on it. A short time later, Tom Paine addressed Lady Liberty in his poem, The Liberty Tree, and soon the goddess took her place alongside the eagle, the Liberty Bell, and various Masonic symbols in the iconography of the new land in the New World.

An enormous bronze statue of Lady Liberty was commissioned in 1855 for the top of the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., and in 1863 she was hoisted up there, where she stands, hardly visible, to this day. During the War Between the States, both sides claimed Lady Liberty and used her image. Among abolitionists, she was shown freeing slaves, while states’ rights advocates showed her freeing mankind from the tyranny of centralized government.

July 5: Lady Liberty (Continued)

Let every sluice of knowledge be opened and set a-flowing.

—John Adams

Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all….

—George Washington

“Liberty Enlightening the World,” which we commonly call the Statue of Liberty, was a gift from France to the U.S. on the occasion of America’s centennial. Designed by Frederic-Auguste Bartoldi and Alexandre Eiffel, Liberty holds a book in one arm and with her other hand raises a torch, a common symbol of truth and purification through illumination. She wears a crown of solar rays similar to the crown worn by the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. One hundred thousand people in France, who had their eyes on liberty, contributed money to the creation of Liberty, and people in the U.S. helped finance the construction of the pedestal she stands on.

In May, 1989, Lady Liberty found a new incarnation as the Goddess of Democracy, a styrofoam and plaster statue built by Chinese students and carried in their demonstrations in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square for academic freedom. She became such a powerful rallying symbol that the Chinese government sent tanks into Tiananmen Square. To this day, we don’t know how many protestors were shot because the old men who rule China refuse to even acknowledge that the demonstrations occurred, though over-seas Chinese around the world still commemorate the massacre. Liberty was crushed by those tanks.

Reader, if you don’t have Lady Liberty in your collection of goddesses, it’s time to get her in your home. My Liberty is an Avon perfume bottle (all those busy Avon Ladies personify Liberty in their own way). Since the repairs to the Statue of Liberty in the 1980s, numerous replicas in all sizes have become available.

Liberty is always to be continued.

Barbara Ardinger, Ph.D. (www.barbaraardinger.com), is the author of Pagan Every Day: Finding the Extraordinary in Our Ordinary Lives (RedWheel/Weiser, 2006), a unique daybook of daily meditations, stories, and activities. Her earlier books are Finding New Goddesses, Quicksilver Moon, Goddess Meditations, and Practicing the Presence of the Goddess. Her day job is freelance editing for people who don't want to embarrass themselves in print. Barbara lives in southern California. To purchase a signed copy of Finding New Goddesses, just send Barbara an email at bawriting@earthlink.net