Marking the solstice — Celebrations are bright spot at the darkest time of the

Climb for a few minutes, if you will, into the mind of a person who lived in, say, Mesopotamia, oh, 2,000 years B.C.

You would know nothing of astronomy — only the lights in the night sky. You would know nothing of planets and tilted axes and rotating orbs. You would know hardly anything about science at all.

So, you would try to make sense of your world as best you could — by ascribing everything you could not understand and reason out to some beings greater than you, some great gods and goddesses that controlled your puny existence.

You believe that you are alive and the world around you is there because the great god Marduk tamed the monsters of chaos and darkness.

But you also believe that this is an ongoing battle. Every year the monsters begin to creep in and try to take over — and the period of sunshine begins to get smaller and smaller — until Marduk goes into battle and pushes the darkness back once again.

If you truly believe this — and there is no reason not to in your time — you also have to believe that it is possible that Marduk might lose this battle. And then you and all around you will be plunged into eternal darkness. This is a real and horrible thought. So, it behooves you to do anything you can to help Marduk. Maybe that means lighting fires to chase away the dark. Maybe that means making sacrifices and offerings to the one fighting on your behalf. Maybe it means gathering together to dance and make merry; maybe it means hours of silent, anxious vigil.

Whatever you did, you would rejoice when the battle was won and light began to move back into your world.

Repeated in various forms in various lands, these were the first observations and celebrations of the winter solstice.

As the centuries moved on, and peoples came to understand the cycles of the year and of light and darkness, there were still observances — but this time not so much in desperation as in celebration. The sun was being "reborn," and life would go on.

In Scandinavia, the winter festival was called the juul or yule, and included the custom of burning huge logs, while people sat around the fire, drinking mead and listening to minstrels singing about ancient legends.