View from the Pew
A look inside Hawaii's houses of worshipBy Mary Adamski
Winter solstice is a very
special time of yearThe winter solstice never goes unobserved in my household. It's in the midst of the only two weeks of the year when we can see the sun set into the ocean from our viewpoint deep in Palolo Valley.
Just back from three weeks in freezing Midwest weather, we have an enhanced feeling of awe for that source of heat and light that we take for granted in this climate. Ahh, back home in the land where "sun worshippers" means those folks stretched on the beach sand.
Seeing the green flash in the blink after sunset is the epitome of our at-home solstice observance. I guess it's the color as much as the astronomical event that stimulates thoughts about those pre-Christian ancestors of mine for whom it was truly a religious experience. We had a chicken skin brush with their form of sun-worship on our last trip to Ireland.
An Irish friend took us to Newgrange, a prehistoric site near the River Boyne north of Dublin. A mound overgrown with turf covers a megalithic temple or tomb. A narrow passage leads to a chamber deep inside that is a monument to the science of its Stone Age builders who found a way to predict the sun's path and briefly trap the sun's rays.
The chamber is illuminated by the sun only on days surrounding winter solstice, Dec. 21, the day of the year when the sun is farthest from the northern hemisphere causing its shortest period of daylight. Hundreds of people apply each year for a chance to be inside for the 17 minutes at dawn Dec. 19th through 23rd when the sun's rays strike the opening above the entrance and travel down the narrow passage to reach the central chamber. With a burst, sunlight reflects from surfaces in the 20-foot high ceiling and illuminates petroglyphs whose message is a mystery. There's room for only 20 people at a time.
Even with the electric spotlight that substituted for sunlight on our tour, it was a hair-raising experience. Oh sure, they can set up that kind of light show at the Honolulu planetarium anytime. What filled me with awe is the fact it was built as expression of spirituality, as well as an accomplishment of science, by people who lived more than 5,000 years ago. Scientists have determined that Newgrange and other mounds in the area were built in about 3200 B.C. That makes them older than the Giza pyramids in Egypt and Stonehenge in England, another version of a solstice clock.
Archeologists say it's likely that the mounds were the cathedrals of their time, places for worship and ceremonies. In later centuries, people used the bowl-like granite surfaces as tombs for religious or royal dignitaries. Scraps of artifacts lead scholars to believe the ashes of those who ruled in the seat of Celtic kings at nearby Tara were buried there. Scholars believe the ancient builders brought the stones uphill from miles away and they estimate it would have taken 300 people working for 20 years to complete Newgrange. (The boring name refers to the land's agricultural character in recent centuries.)
Delicate, repeating patterns of spirals decorate the 97 huge boulders that circle the mound as kerbstones. No one can read the inscriptions, but everyone from archeologist to New Age believer to modern Irish artist has a theory. A unique triple spiral "symbolizes man, woman and child as well as birth, love and death, the continuity of the life cycle" according to one 20th Century artisan.
Newgrange and the other Boyne valley mounds are considered among the oldest buildings in all of Europe and have been designated World Heritage Sites by UNESCO. The mounds have been overgrown and obscured, referred to in myths, and rediscovered time and again, most recently in 1699. Modern fantasy writers and New Age followers have crafted their own myths about the pagan people and the ways they worshipped there.
I don't think it's counter to this season when Christians and Buddhists celebrate roots of their beliefs to contemplate those ancient solstice people. I wonder if, when the mound cathedrals fell into obscurity millennia ago, it was because the awe at capturing the light flickered out in younger generations who focused instead on the sun's material results, fertile fields and profitable herds. I wonder whether Patrick, that clever marketer of Christianity who was not a stranger to this corner of Ireland, mightn't have been inspired by the triple spiral symbol. It doesn't take much of an artistic spin from there to the shamrock which he used to illustrate the Trinity to the pagans of his time.
I wonder why humans keep coming up with new spiritual visions about Light overcoming Darkness, but tend to reject all the visions that went before -- by people who recognized a special dimension in themselves, too -- as pagan.
And, I wonder about that green flash. But there, at least, is an answer I can look up!
RELIGION CALENDAR
Mary Adamski covers religion for the Star-Bulletin.
Email her at madamski@starbulletin.com.
