An advent calendar

Advent - the time that heralds the arrival of The Christ (the chosen one).

Solstice - the longest night of winter, through which we must travel towards a brighter light, towards the six months of summer.

Hannukah - the Jewish festival of light.

Saturnalia - the Roman festival dedicated to the god of time, of renewal, of the seed.

Yule - meaning wheel - the turning point of the year - the longest night when Odin leads the wild ride and the dead are said to walk the earth.

When we enter advent, we are travelling into the darkness, towards the longest night.
When we emerge from advent, we are travelling into the light.

Each day of advent is commonly marked by a numbered door - a threshold.

Each door has a mystery behind it.

Bluebeard - the threshold to darkness

Bluebeard mythologises the mystery door and the curiosity that drives the heroine to open it.

Be bold be bold but not too bold.

But she must open the door.
And through her journey into the darkness, comes a greater light.
Because her alternative would be to remain married to a monstrous man.

Behind Bluebeard’s door is fantasy of blood and violence and desire.
Some interpret it to be his fantasy - the darkest side of his sexuality.
Some see it as her own.

Aeneas - the threshold to the Underworld

Aeneas, prince of Troy, travels to southern Italy seeking refuge after the war.
His father travels with him but dies on journey.
After his father’s death, Aeneas wishes to see him one more time, so he decides he must travel into the underworld.
He does not know how to get in and out again, so he visits The Sibyl.
The Sibyl tells him that he must take a golden bough which will act as a - a kind of key to the darkness.
Virgil isn’t explicit about what plant the golden bough comes from.
Soon after his meeting with The Sibyl, Aeneas is cutting trees for a funeral pyre when two doves draw his attention to a golden bough.
He cuts it, and it does give him access to the underworld.
Eventually he leaves the bough with Persephone.
Queen of the Underworld.

Fraser (in his famous book on myth - The Golden Bough) chooses to identify the plant as mistletoe.

Mistletoe

It is said that in Solstice celebrations, the Druids of Britain would cut mistletoe from the branches of the oldest of the oak trees - an ancient pagan tradition.
But others argue that it was the Roman occupiers of Britain who used mistletoe, not the ancient Britons themselves.
They argue it was hung prominently in Roman orgies, leading to the connection between mistletoe and kissing underneath its branches.

It is also said that Romans hung mistletoe over the thresholds of their homes, to protect them.
Mistletoe is unusual because it does not grow from the ground.
It can only grow in the branches of trees.
The seeds are eaten by birds and then they pass through the bird and emerge onto tree branches.
When they take seed and become Mistletoe.

Kissing the Threshold

It is almost certainly true that the Romans brought the tradition of kissing to Britain.

In Virgil’s Aeneid, there is a description of kissing, not under mistletoe, but certainly under thresholds…

Inside the palace,
Groans mingle with sad confusion,
And, deep within, the hollow halls howl with women’s cries: the
NOISE strikes the golden stars.
Trembling mothers wander the vast building,
Clasping the doorposts,
And kissing them.

The kiss is connected to protection of the threshold.

The Pomegranate

In Greece, Pomegranates are hung on thresholds at Christmas.

Before midnight of Christmas Eve, to symbolize the old year that passed, all lights at the house are turned off. The family gathers outside and, at midnight, a pomegranate is smashed on the doorstep. To be stained by the red juice is to be lucky.

The pomegranate is the fruit that captures Persephone in Hades - meaning she must stay there for six months of the year.
The pomegranate creates the turn of the season.

In Iran, the pomegranate is eaten at Solstice, or Yalda.
It is considered to be a heavenly fruit.
Perhaps the original forbidden fruit.

Bits of Oddvent

Door number one …

Hannukah …

As Solstice looms : (password : seed) …

On the night of Solstice - the only live event in the whole calendar …