Craig Chalquist: Putting Saturn Back Into Christmas

[a guest blogger]

With some amusement I read a news story today about conservative Christians angry at President Bush for sending them generic Christmas Cards. Taking issue with the politically correct "happy holidays" approach to trying not to offend non-Christians, they argued that we should "put Christ back into Christmas." After all, we're a Christian country founded by Christians, aren't we? Never mind the millions who espouse other faiths, or eschew organized religion altogether--or the fact that many of our Founders were deists who feared theocracy more than they feared an unchecked mob.

Still, perhaps giving some due to the god behind the holiday would not harm anything. The only question is which god to give it to. Before the missionaries got to work on it, the holiday was a festival in praise of Saturn, the god of the harvest. Saturn hovers over every fruitful harvest, every ripened grape and ear of corn. When you go out to your garden and gather the last fruits of the growing season, you are unknowingly paying homage to the universal energy of fruition. Saturn's mythological Golden Age brought in crops and harvests too plentiful to count.

So yes, do celebrate Christmas, but by respecting its Saturnian connection to the Earth that keeps us fed and breathing, a connection which the warrior apostles of intolerance have tried so hard to Hallmark over.

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Craig Chalquist, MS PhD
www.tearsofllorona.com