WINGED WORDS WINDSDAY
Compiled by Rob Chappell (@RHCLambengolmo)
Vol. 1, No. 6: December 8, 2021
“The Phoenix Bird and the Winter Solstice: A Tale of Fire and Ice”
By Rob Chappell, M.A.
Adapted & Expanded from Articles and Presentations by the Author Between 2008 and 2015
Each year at the Winter Solstice (December 21/22), the Sun reaches its southernmost point in the sky as seen from Earth. As this pivotal event approaches, the days grow shorter and colder, and the Sun’s circular journey across the daytime sky becomes far lower than it was at the Summer Solstice in June. To the skywatchers of the ancient world, it appeared as if the Sun – the source of growth, light, and warmth – was dying of old age. Then, shortly after the Winter Solstice, which marked the shortest day and the longest night of the year, something amazing happened! The Sun began to rejuvenate and started to climb higher in the sky each day. Eventually, more daylight and warmth returned to the world, and springtime would arrive three months later, at the Vernal Equinox (March 19/20).
This annual event – the metaphorical “death and rejuvenation” of the Sun at the Winter Solstice – was definitely something worth celebrating! The cycle of the seasons could continue to move forward because the Sun came back from the threshold of oblivion. Light overcame darkness; warmth banished the cold; hope replaced despair; and life defeated death. People celebrated the Winter Solstice because it reminded them of the Sun’s rebirth and return, which made agriculture possible. Hence we can understand why agriculture and astronomy are so closely interrelated: We cannot have agriculture without a calendar, and we cannot have a calendar without astronomy.
The annual cycle of the seasons and its effects on our natural surroundings are recurring themes throughout world mythology. The skywatchers and mythmakers of long ago celebrated the changing of the seasons and the wonders of the natural world in both poetry and prose. Using the storytelling techniques of their prescientific age, they chose to personify the forces of Nature, the celestial orbs, and abstract ideals in order to explain how and why the natural world and the human social order function in the ways that they do. To explain what was happening in the natural world around the time of the Winter Solstice, skywatchers and mythmakers created many edutaining stories, but perhaps the most famous tale related to the Winter Solstice is the story of the phoenix bird.
From Japan and China to Egypt and Greece, tales of this fabulous creature have been spun for thousands of years. According to the most widespread tradition, there was only one phoenix alive in the world at any given time. This legendary bird was adorned with beautiful crimson, golden, and violet plumage, and it built its nest of spices in a remote corner of East Asia (possibly in Japan, the Land of the Rising Sun). It was also said that the phoenix had the most wonderful song of all birds and that its tears could heal even mortal wounds. Since the phoenix bird had originated on the Sun (where myriads of phoenixes were supposed to dwell), it needed no earthly food; instead, it was nourished by solar energy exclusively. (This might lead us to wonder: Why wasn’t the phoenix green, since it was photosynthetic?). 😊
Every 500 years, the elderly phoenix would burst into flames and die in its nest of rare spices – but from its ashes would hatch a rejuvenated young phoenix to live for another five centuries. The newborn phoenix, as soon as it could fly, would carry the bones and ashes of its former self to the Temple of the Sun in Heliopolis, Egypt, where the priests would note in their chronicles that a new “phoenix cycle” of 500 years had begun.
From an astronomical perspective, we can see how the death, spontaneous combustion, and rebirth of the phoenix symbolized the annual cycle of the seasons, in which the Sun “dies” of old age at the Winter Solstice, only to rejuvenate and ascend into the heavens once again with the approach of springtime. Drawing on such mythological starlore, European Renaissance astronomers introduced a phoenix into the sky as a constellation. The celestial phoenix can be seen just above the southern horizon on early winter evenings from the American Midwest – a starry witness to the changing seasons on the revolving wheel of the year.
The phoenix can still hold many meanings for us today. For example, the phoenix might represent the power that we have to begin again after a personal tragedy or some other great loss. It may also remind us of Nature’s ability to recover and renew herself after disasters like hurricanes and earthquakes. On a more metaphysical level, however, the phoenix was understood to represent human immortality and the hope of a new Golden Age beyond the End of Days. This theme is echoed in Erasmus Darwin’s [1731-1802] description of Nature’s revivification after the Universe, in the far distant future, has “died”:
“Roll on, ye Stars! Exult in youthful prime,
Mark with bright curves the printless steps of Time;
Near and more near your beamy cars approach,
And lessening orbs on lessening orbs encroach;
Flowers of the sky! Ye too to age must yield,
Frail as your silken sisters of the field!
Star after star from Heaven’s high arch shall rush,
Suns sink on suns, and systems systems crush,
Headlong, extinct, to one dark center fall,
And Death and Night and Chaos mingle all!
Till over the wreck, emerging from the storm,
Immortal Nature lifts her changeful form,
Mounts from her funeral pyre on wings of flame,
And soars and shines, another and the same.”
à The Botanic Garden (1789-1791)
As the world awaits the beginning of the New Year, ten days after the Winter Solstice, we would do well to remember these practical yet profound insights from the skywatchers and mythmakers of long ago and far away. The core message of all the Winter Solstice holidays – and the myth of the phoenix bird itself – is summarized in this poem by one of my favorite authors, George MacDonald (1824-1905):
“Up and Down”
Excerpted from Chapter 37 of At the Back of the North Wind (1871)
The Sun is gone down, and the Moon’s in the sky;
But the Sun will come up, and the Moon be laid by.
The flower is asleep, but it is not dead;
When the morning shines, it will lift its head.
When Winter comes, it will die – no, no;
It will only hide from the frost and the snow.
Sure is the Summer, sure is the Sun;
The night and the Winter are shadows that run.
Webliography
To learn more about the phoenix bird and its myriad meanings, readers may consult the following resources.
· https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Claudian/Carmina_Minora*/27.html à Read an English translation of a Latin poem about the phoenix, written by the Roman poet Claudian around 400 CE.
· http://www.pantheon.org/articles/p/phoenix.html à Here is an overview of the phoenix myth from a multicultural perspective.
· http://www.theoi.com/Thaumasios/Phoinix.html à This illustrated reference page includes brief articles and citations from ancient Greek and Roman authors about the phoenix.
This illustration of the constellation Phoenix appeared in Johann Doppelmayr’s Atlas Coelestis (plate 19), which was published in Nuremberg, Germany ca. 1742. The celestial Phoenix is partially visible from the American Midwest, just above the southern horizon, on early winter evenings. (Image Credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)
