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Silent, ineluctable, the golden shaft of light streams into the darkness of my room.

Because the street-grid of Minneapolis is laid out East-West, on Evenday mornings the Spring (and Harvest) Sun rising due east shines in through the eastern windows, down the hall, and into my bedroom on the west side of the house.

It's like living in Newgrange, but with heat and running water.

They say that Zeus appeared to Danaë in a Shower of Gold.

They say that Shiva revealed himself as a Lingam of Fire.

I jump out of bed and stand in the Lordly Light. His godly touch gilds my naked skin.

 DN = Divine Name

When you're outside and see the Sun for the first time after waking, kiss your hand and say:

Love to you, my [DN].

If you are not wont to address the Sun by Name, kiss your hand and say:

Love to you, my Light.

When you're outside and see the Moon for the first time after waking, kiss your hand and say:

Love to you, my [DN].

If you are not wont to address the Moon by Name, kiss your hand and say:

Love to you, my Light.

When you're outside and see the major River in your area for the first time after waking, kiss your hand and say:

[Name of River], I kiss my hand to you.

If you are not wont to address the River by Name, kiss your hand and say:

River of Life, I kiss my hand to you.

In traditional societies as far removed as Zuñi Pueblo of the American Southwest and the Kalasha valleys of what is now northwestern Pakistan, the Winter Solstice is marked—among other activities—by footraces.

I've long wondered why this would be so, but this morning—watching the Sun leap up over the horizon—it suddenly occurred to me why.

It's sympathetic magic. The Sun is a runner.

Every day, the Sun walks across the Sky. Even on the day of his birth, he walks from one horizon to the other. Well, he's a god; he can.

(During the Bronze Age, when we became a Horse People, people began to say that the Sun drove across the sky daily in his chariot. In those days, nobles and warriors rode horses and drove chariots, unlike us common folks who walked; when we rode, it was in ox-carts. Surely, went the logic, the Sun was more like nobility and the warrior-kind: hence his chariot. These days, though, we understand that to walk is more sacred than to ride.)

Three-some weeks until the Evenday and his due Eastern rising. This morning he came up still considerably south of east.

“He'll have to run to catch up,” I thought.

Aha.

My friend Sirius is Kemetic. I call him my “effete shaveling.” He calls me his “vile Asiatic.” We get along just fine.

Sirius works at a hospital. He's completely out to his co-workers there.

The hospital chaplain began to tease him.

“How's Ra workin' for you?” he'd say.

Me, I was furious when I heard about this. Issues of professionalism aside: well, just consider.

Ra: the Sun, that massive and ineffable star of heartbreaking beauty and profundity around which our lives literally revolve, without which we would not, and could not, even exist.

Then there's the chaplain's god: some dead Jewish guy who's basically (let's be frank) a fictional character.

Really, I ask you: just who should be making fun of whom here?

The great god of the Northern Bronze Age was the Sun, and His sign was the Wheel.

Happy were they who saw His sign standing in the sky.

Today, in the winter skies of the North, we see it there still.

“Parahelia,” they say, or “Sun dogs.”

Now these are the Three Births of Yule.

The First Birth of Yule is the Primal Birth.

Long ago, in ages of ages, the fires of the Sun first kindled, since when He has royally burned in self-giving, sacrificial light.

The Second Birth of Yule is the Eternal Birth.

This is the annual birth of the Sun, Who daily and yearly goes down in darkness and rises up again: and unto ages of ages.

The Third Birth of Yule is the Earthly Birth.

Whose warm love flows across the land each day

Stirring Life, the world’s magic, arms yearning up,