An ancient song dedicated to Mihr, God of Light, Harmony and Truth
Winter Solstice. The shortest day, the longest night. When darkness is at its zenith. When we, children of the Sun, are away from our mother/father the longest. We are but starstuff, as Carl Sagan would say. Many have a difficult time enduring the winter, whether because they live in an area where literal survival is difficult in winter, or due to psychological issues such as Seasonal Affective Disorder. There are those like me who love the darkness and the cold, but still somehow become closer to sadness than joy this time of year regardless. It is natural. We all need the sun, just like plants do, whether we like it or not. Without sunlight, one becomes depressive, no matter how mentally healthy they may be. I relish winter, and darkness. This is my favorite night of the year. And yet, I know that without the light and warmth of the sun, I, and the world I live on, would be nothing. Still, on the darkest night of all, I will revel in the dark, with a song in my heart. Because I have Summer Solstice for being thankful to the Sun. Does it need both Solstices? Well, maybe yes. "Sol", the Latin name of the Sun, is in the word "Solstice", after all, and not for no reason. But with the dwindling sunlight, we are able to look up at the stars longer, at the brothers and sisters of our Sun, and ponder our universe.
This is my song for this night.
This is my song for this night.
Come, King Winter, blow me so far away, swept away into the night, end my sorrow and pain.
Light and harmony are things that make most people happy. Light can blind your eyes if it is too strong, but without any light, you can't see and are just as blind. Light is real. Different religions personify real things. The Sun is personified as the central deity in the vast majority of religions that have ever existed. And for practical reasons. The sun is really our oldest living ancestor. We all descend from it. Our entire planet was born from the Sun. So although Ra, the Egyptian Sun deity who had a falcon's head and a human's body, may not have been physically "real", as we define realness, the Sun is undeniably real. Ra is an interpretation of the sun. He is one way of looking at the Sun, of thinking about the Sun. So in that way, all the Gods of old are real. They represent something real.
This brings it to my own ancestors. They paid attention to the Sun and the stars and astronomy just like many other human cultures throughout time. They celebrated Winter Solstice, knowing that this was the shortest day and longest night. They made it a holiday of the birth of the God Mihr, who represented Light, Harmony, and Truth. All real things, at least as concepts with the latter two. By making it a birth celebration, they are celebrating the coming of Spring and Summer, of the lengthening of the days as light grows stronger day by day. To my knowledge, not a whole lot of stories have survived to the present day about Mihr, because unlike Greece and Egypt, when Christianity came to Armenia they destroyed almost everything and erased history. I don't know what exactly made that so much easier to do to Armenia than Egypt or Greece, but the erasure of Armenian paganism was almost complete. All we really know is whatever tidbits early Christian Armenian historians chose to save.
Garni Temple. Photo by me, from my 2015 trip
One temple wasn't destroyed, and that is Garni. A Roman-style temple, it is our only glimpse to what these temples looked like. Much older temples have been unearthed, but none as complete. And Garni was a temple to Mihr. Here they would celebrate the Birth of the Sun. There are some who choose to continue the tradition of their distant ancestors by marking Solstice and celebrating Mihr, after nearly 1,700 years of dormancy. A neopagan sect known as Hetanos. Of course, in a sense it never really went away. Much of what wasn't destroyed was incorporated into Christianity (holidays such as Vardavar), or simply kept as a "superstition" that the Church decided wasn't worth bothering to discourage (like tying cloth to trees and making a wish; a remnant of nature and tree worship). In Armenia, as in most of Europe, such celebrations of the Winter Solstice morphed into Christmas due to Christian influence. Jesus wasn't even born near the Winter Solstice according to the Bible. His birthday was moved from the Spring to replace the many celebrations of the different religious traditions around the world. The Solstice, and by extension the Sun, is the real "reason for the season".
This is an excerpt from the Ukhtagirk. Image found on Facebook, not made by me. But translated by me below.
A Hymn to Light
Lawlessness is the power of darkness,
And the light only births righteousness.
Colors are only visible in light,
Light delivers beauty,
The smile of a person is also illuminated by light.
We can only see each other in light,
Only in light can a person be victorious,
Echoes of evil, the illusion of death;
The power of darkness.
And underneath the light what good comes?
What beauty? What allure?
What familiarity?
And here is a modern celebration I was able to find. Modern as in 1991. But they still do this today.
This was basically just a ramble, but I hope it was an informative one. If I've piqued your interest, here are some places you can find out more about Mihr.
https://pagan.wikia.org/wiki/Mihr
https://allinnet.info/antiquities/mithra-mihr-mher-the-pantheon-of-ancient-armenia
https://allinnet.info/history/mythical-king-lion-mher-and-ancient-deity-mithra
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