"Rise up, rise up,
Ever victorious,
Low the tide, Low the light,
Comes the sun again"
~ Thea Gilmore, Sol Invictus
I heard this song for the first time on Tuesday, when Thea and the Sense of Sound choir
performed it on stage in Manchester. It was beautiful - magical and spine tingling. A hymn for the sun, a call of longing, a promise that Spring will come. It brought back the same sensations as when I visited Newgrange, a monument that was built 5,000 years ago in the Boyne Valley in Ireland.
Sol Invictus took me back to standing in the chamber looking up at the stones that had been placed there, the designs that had been lovingly carved, by the hands of people now thousands of years gone. It was filled with an atmosphere of mystery, a place of magic and spirituality, calm but overwhelmingly exhilarating and moving.
I was deeply touched by the idea that people would devote themselves to such a monumental task, that those who began to build would not have lived to see its completion. They invested so much, and were inspired to create something that would long outlive them. Not a legacy for themselves so that their names would be remembered, but a monument for the ages.
The next time I will see Thea Gilmore play will be December 21st - the Winter Solstice, the shortest day, after which the hours of darkness gradually shorten and the days lengthen. There are still months of cold, frost but we we can start to look forward again.
To picnics in the park. To days spent shivering on the beach because the weather forecast said temperatures would get above 20 degrees. Even now, we worship the sun - Maybe some things haven't changed that much in 5,000 years. Of course we'll never know why several generations of people devoted their lives to building Newgrange, but legend says the mound was dedicated to Dagha, the
sun god
of pre-Christian Ireland.
Built by hand using 200,000 tonnes of rock, a long sloping passage leading into a vast chamber, beautiful and cathedral-like, the walls narrowing up to a single slab 20 feet above. Alcoves with flat stones were the final resting places for the remains of the dead.
The people of the Boyne valley must have known by heart the Sun's journey across the sky. Newgrange tomb is precisely astronomically aligned, so that at sunrise on the
winter solstice each year, something magical can occur. On this day, a shaft of sunlight enters through a large opening above the entrance (the
roof box) and pierces the inner passageway. The passage is perfectly aligned and angled to allow the beam of light to travel slowly upwards and into the chamber, illuminating the strange stone basin and
spiral carvings at the back of the chamber. A handful of observers get to see the real event (and only if the weather conditions are right), but visitors are allowed a reconstruction with the aid of electricity! Not quite as good as the real thing, but still it manages to convey what a strange simple wonder it must be to witness.
No one can tell us why Newgrange was built to welcome the dawn of the solstice each year. But one theory is that the spirals are symbols of the journey to the next world - maybe they believed the light would bless the remains of the dead, and transport their souls to the afterlife. Maybe they believed it was a signal that they would not be damned to eternal winter, they had been blessed with a promise that long days would return, the light and warmth bringing with them a blooming of lush greeness and a season of plenty.
We can imagine them, the leaders and elders of the Boyne valley, ascending the hill. It is early, eerily silent, and still dark as night although morning is approaching. The vast mound of the tomb is just a faint sillouette, barely visible in the gloom. Solomnly, they approach the entrance, rest their hands on the threshold stone, elaborately carved with spirals, concentric circles and diamond shapes, then step up and over into the entrance of the tomb. No tell tale scorch marks remain to tell us that fire lit their steps, they feel their way down the passage to the main chamber of the tomb. In the darkness they circle around the walls of the chamber, then sit down & wait in silence, hardly daring to breathe. Waiting for the dawn. Will the sun rise?
Slowly, slowly, a lighter spot begins to emerge on the floor, far up the passageway. It deepens gradually, spreads into a beam of pure gold that creeps up the passage to flood the chamber with light. Dawn. The Sun God has risen again, he has heard our call. He has come to take away the souls of our departed, who have waited so patiently here in the dark. The bringer of light, of warmth, of new beginnings, of hope.
http://www.knowth.com/winter-solstice.htm
