Io dies natalis Solis Invicti!

Today is, by my reckoning, the natural, i.e. astronomically derived, day both for the new year (the sun increasing its days again, metaphorically reborn, etc.) and for Christmas (even Mithras/Christ conflation solstice history aside, it's clearly a holiday celebrating the triumph of life and light over winter). Our calendar rolls over at one snapshot date for the solstice, and Christ's nominal birth is fixed at a different point, and I'm happy to celebrate them both where they traditionally lie, and treat the week between as a modern Saturnalia - but still, it's worth recalling that today at 6:08 EST we had the ur-event that the whole season observes one way or another. (Even Hanukah's festival of light, while not actually a winter solstice celebration, could be said to have been magnified in colder climes than Israel because of its similar reverence of an enduring light in dark times.)

I meant to post closer to dawn's meditative reflection, or at least while that first valiant sun of the new year was actually still in the sky. Ah, well.

Have a happy holiday, whether your chosen symbol of light is a solstice candle, a Christmas tree, or a SAD lamp. Light and life will triumph.