So it comes around to that time of year again. Time of our own traditions, those inherited, and those mashed together over countless generations down shifting cycles of the human unconscious. Yes, the mass of Christ – the weight of his sufferings and the density of his flesh. Nom-noms.
In my nightly wanderings around the works of Frazer I’ve come across many an interesting scene that will perhaps add weight to last year’s Jungian ramblings. May the myth of Persephone serve as an example. Ovid’s version, if failing memory serves me, depicts the abduction of a daughter from a mother and the ensuing custody battle. Frazer expands on this by drawing on the “eastern” version of the myth in which two lovers are separated. Being a season-based myth, the emphasis is thus moved from the nurturing vision of mother-earth to the impregnating actions of the seed-sower. What interested me, however, was that both versions utilised the pomegranate as a more-or-less arbitrary symbol: it both grew in the underworld and represented through seeds the many hungry days of winter. The version taught to me both at school and, more memorably, by my grandmother instead stated that it was Persephone’s eating of the pomegranate that doomed her to life in the underworld. In the land of Milton then, it would be fair to say that Eve’s original sin has jumped on an otherwise Hellenic bandwagon. Or sleigh, as they’d have had back then…
Forgive me, my comely and insatiable imaginary reader, for the roundabout way I’m taking – I only wish to demonstrate how imprecise and over-presumptive my method is here. You see, Christmas is a time of baffling complexity in terms of its symbolism (if can even be called that). The Christian nativity is second only to the book “Revelations”, or maybe “Ezekiel”, as far as Biblical weirdness goes. The three (important kabbalic/pythagorean number) magi standing beside shepherds has some Christian merit I guess; “tending of the flock” being a central doctrine, as well as its sense of egalitarianism. That hardly provides an overt for them though.
Once I return to Frazer and read of the Thracian celebrations of Dionysus – almost identical to the nativity in terms of setting, time of year, and dramatis personae – a consistent theme seems to emerge. The shepherds tend their flocks that they may be harvested. One magus brings myrrh; an embalming resin. The stable is depicted traditionally as filled with animals, many of which serve only as food, with the babe placed in the manger, or feeding trough. In essence, all the signs point to the inevitable death and consumption of the newborn. The Theban Dionysian ritual sees an old man become a cow that it might be torn apart to reveal an infant. The Christian ritual of eating body and drinking blood is perhaps tamer, but only as it happens so regularly and, for Protestants at least, is reduced to symbol.
Both myrrh and frankincense, as resin, are also the blood of trees. Yet the tree is traditionally an element of springtime symbolism eg/ the maypole. Here the Thracian myth goes whole-hog and employs a giant wicker phallus, but lets not get dragged into Freud. I think the key issue here is one aptly demonstrated by the Tate’s new tree; the tree is always an evergreen. Where spring is happily to be spotted in the greening of an oak, so is winter to be bravely weathered by the pine. Although usually depicted as an ash - the life-tree, Yggdrasil of Norse mythology, would be well-suited to this role. Standing as the eternal symbol of constant being, Yggdrasil stands for a gleaming permanence amongst the anthropophagic flux.
I’m getting pushed for time so may as well try and eke out a few more observances about the remaining elements. Now, I’ve said I wouldn’t get into Freud but it’s in Totem and Taboo that some of the implications of Frazer are drawn out on the subject of parenthood. Why is he “Father” Christmas? It could be argued that the term is historically a term of respect (perhaps like “grandpa” would be now, though it’d be hard to not make it sound sarcastic). If we’re talking historically, however, St. Nicholas has pretty much nothing to do with this odd character – albeit his namesake. Rather than Freud then, lets turn to Levi-Strauss and, less so, Frazer again. The notion of fatherhood is often ignored and sometimes not even understood by the tribespeople they studied. Women simply became pregnant and families extended through the maternal line. The father is negligible – a belief shared by the Jews and, to drag us back, perhaps then an influence on the creation of the Virgin Mary?
It’s here that I must stop myself. I fear a bottle of wine and increasing liberties regarding synchronic notions has left me pondering whether Father Christmas is actually Jesus’ dad. Perhaps a better path would be to follow the line of presents and dinner (offerings/sacrifices), or maybe some “Santa Claus” Germanic track? Maybe something to do with Coca-Cola or the fact that I’ve never really liked Christmas that much anyway…
Anyway, anyway… this has been a long one for you, my intrepid imaginary reader. You must be tired. Do come join me in bed. Or, failing that, consider that there is a strange sublimity in all man’s works, even at their most ridiculous. Surely that’s a better reason for the season? Well screw it then, I’ll return to Bakhtin…
Merry chrunchmas and a happy gluhwein!
In my nightly wanderings around the works of Frazer I’ve come across many an interesting scene that will perhaps add weight to last year’s Jungian ramblings. May the myth of Persephone serve as an example. Ovid’s version, if failing memory serves me, depicts the abduction of a daughter from a mother and the ensuing custody battle. Frazer expands on this by drawing on the “eastern” version of the myth in which two lovers are separated. Being a season-based myth, the emphasis is thus moved from the nurturing vision of mother-earth to the impregnating actions of the seed-sower. What interested me, however, was that both versions utilised the pomegranate as a more-or-less arbitrary symbol: it both grew in the underworld and represented through seeds the many hungry days of winter. The version taught to me both at school and, more memorably, by my grandmother instead stated that it was Persephone’s eating of the pomegranate that doomed her to life in the underworld. In the land of Milton then, it would be fair to say that Eve’s original sin has jumped on an otherwise Hellenic bandwagon. Or sleigh, as they’d have had back then…
Forgive me, my comely and insatiable imaginary reader, for the roundabout way I’m taking – I only wish to demonstrate how imprecise and over-presumptive my method is here. You see, Christmas is a time of baffling complexity in terms of its symbolism (if can even be called that). The Christian nativity is second only to the book “Revelations”, or maybe “Ezekiel”, as far as Biblical weirdness goes. The three (important kabbalic/pythagorean number) magi standing beside shepherds has some Christian merit I guess; “tending of the flock” being a central doctrine, as well as its sense of egalitarianism. That hardly provides an overt for them though.
Once I return to Frazer and read of the Thracian celebrations of Dionysus – almost identical to the nativity in terms of setting, time of year, and dramatis personae – a consistent theme seems to emerge. The shepherds tend their flocks that they may be harvested. One magus brings myrrh; an embalming resin. The stable is depicted traditionally as filled with animals, many of which serve only as food, with the babe placed in the manger, or feeding trough. In essence, all the signs point to the inevitable death and consumption of the newborn. The Theban Dionysian ritual sees an old man become a cow that it might be torn apart to reveal an infant. The Christian ritual of eating body and drinking blood is perhaps tamer, but only as it happens so regularly and, for Protestants at least, is reduced to symbol.
Both myrrh and frankincense, as resin, are also the blood of trees. Yet the tree is traditionally an element of springtime symbolism eg/ the maypole. Here the Thracian myth goes whole-hog and employs a giant wicker phallus, but lets not get dragged into Freud. I think the key issue here is one aptly demonstrated by the Tate’s new tree; the tree is always an evergreen. Where spring is happily to be spotted in the greening of an oak, so is winter to be bravely weathered by the pine. Although usually depicted as an ash - the life-tree, Yggdrasil of Norse mythology, would be well-suited to this role. Standing as the eternal symbol of constant being, Yggdrasil stands for a gleaming permanence amongst the anthropophagic flux.
I’m getting pushed for time so may as well try and eke out a few more observances about the remaining elements. Now, I’ve said I wouldn’t get into Freud but it’s in Totem and Taboo that some of the implications of Frazer are drawn out on the subject of parenthood. Why is he “Father” Christmas? It could be argued that the term is historically a term of respect (perhaps like “grandpa” would be now, though it’d be hard to not make it sound sarcastic). If we’re talking historically, however, St. Nicholas has pretty much nothing to do with this odd character – albeit his namesake. Rather than Freud then, lets turn to Levi-Strauss and, less so, Frazer again. The notion of fatherhood is often ignored and sometimes not even understood by the tribespeople they studied. Women simply became pregnant and families extended through the maternal line. The father is negligible – a belief shared by the Jews and, to drag us back, perhaps then an influence on the creation of the Virgin Mary?
It’s here that I must stop myself. I fear a bottle of wine and increasing liberties regarding synchronic notions has left me pondering whether Father Christmas is actually Jesus’ dad. Perhaps a better path would be to follow the line of presents and dinner (offerings/sacrifices), or maybe some “Santa Claus” Germanic track? Maybe something to do with Coca-Cola or the fact that I’ve never really liked Christmas that much anyway…
Anyway, anyway… this has been a long one for you, my intrepid imaginary reader. You must be tired. Do come join me in bed. Or, failing that, consider that there is a strange sublimity in all man’s works, even at their most ridiculous. Surely that’s a better reason for the season? Well screw it then, I’ll return to Bakhtin…
Merry chrunchmas and a happy gluhwein!
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