{"id":9349,"date":"2009-12-21T02:09:15","date_gmt":"2009-12-21T09:09:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=9349"},"modified":"2009-12-21T02:09:15","modified_gmt":"2009-12-21T09:09:15","slug":"the-reason-for-the-season-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=9349","title":{"rendered":"The Reason for the Season"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>There is a reason that Mithras\u2019 birthday was celebrated this time of year. A reason that Bacchus\u2019 birthday, the Saturnalia, Jesus\u2019 birthday, and the New Year come this time of year as well. For those of us living in the Northern Hemisphere, at 17:47 UTC today (9:47 AM Pacific Standard Time) the Sun\u2019s slow ebb reaches its nadir, and begins its welcome return. For those of us who live in northern climes it is a not insignificant day; the sun will not rise today in Portland until 7:48 AM and will have set by 4:30 PM, a meager eight hours and forty-two minutes of daylight. And Oregon is in the pink compared to, say, Stockholm, where the sunrise doesn\u2019t come until 8:44 AM and sunset is already complete at 2:48 PM\u2013just over six hours of daylight.<\/p>\n

It is no wonder that millennia ago, our forebearers saw this day as especially meaningful \u2014 the moment at which the Sun began its triumphant rebirth. Thus Mithras, the Sun God, was reborn on this day, to grow and prosper, rising until July, when he slowly began to wither and die. Thus the Son God, Jesus, has a story that, calendar be damned, fits well with the idea of Sol dying, and being resurrected. All of this has happened before, all of this will happen again, an infinite cycle, repeated infinitely — or as close to it as we humans can imagine.<\/p>\n

And so today, we celebrate the day that is the progenitor of all our winter festivals, the Winter Solstice\u2013and await again our planet\u2019s rebirth into the light. Happy Solstice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is a reason that Mithras\u2019 birthday was celebrated this time of year. A reason that Bacchus\u2019 birthday, the Saturnalia, Jesus\u2019 birthday, and the New Year come this time of year as well. For those of us living in the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mind-blowing-miscellania-and-other-neat-stuff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9349\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}