CHRISTMAS: A Rite of Death Disguised as Birth….
Christmas is presented as a celebration of light, innocence, and divine birth. Yet beneath the ornaments, hymns, and red robes lies an older and far darker ritual architecture. What we call Christmas is not a beginning. It is a continuation. A carefully repainted mystery whose original face has been hidden, not erased.
Long before Christ, December was sacred to Saturn, the ancient god of time, decay, and cyclical death. The Roman festival of Saturnalia was not about charity or peace. It was about inversion. Masters served slaves. Laws were suspended. Excess, masks, and chaos were encouraged. This was not celebration. It was ritualized disorder, honoring the devourer of ages, the god who consumes his own children.
Saturn ruled time, and time feeds on life.
Saturn’s symbol was the sickle. The reaper. The harvester of souls and seasons. His domain was winter, when the sun appears to die. The darkest point of the solar year. The moment when humanity feared the light might never return. Rituals were performed not to celebrate joy, but to appease the darkness, to ensure the sun’s rebirth.
This is where the myth shifts, not disappears.
As empires fell and religions rose, Saturn did not vanish. He was masked. His festival was absorbed. His symbolism softened. The grim reaper was dressed in red. The devourer of time became a giver of gifts. Saturn became Santa. The red robe is not accidental. Red was Saturn’s color, the color of sacrifice and blood. The white beard is time itself, ancient and consuming. The list he checks is judgment. Who is worthy. Who is not. Reward and punishment. Moral accounting. Not grace. Surveillance. Santa does not save. He evaluates.
The North Pole myth is even older. In pre Christian Europe, winter was ruled by Odin, the dark sky father who rode the night winds during the Wild Hunt. He traveled through the air, entered homes through the roof, judged households, and rewarded or punished children. His companions were spirits, not elves. His season was death and transition. Odin did not bring comfort. He brought reckoning.
The evergreen tree is not decoration. It is a symbol of survival through death. A solar talisman. Ancient pagans brought trees indoors to trap the life force of nature during winter. Ornaments were once offerings. Candles were spells to call the sun back from the underworld.
Even the date itself betrays the secret. December 25 was never Christ’s birthday. It was the rebirth of the unconquered sun. Sol Invictus. The moment when darkness reaches its peak and begins to turn. Christianity did not replace this ritual. It baptized it. And baptism does not remove power. It redirects it.
This is the true alchemy of Christmas. The transformation of a death rite into a celebration of birth. The masking of Saturn with sentiment. The spiritual tension you feel every December is not coincidence. It is the clash between light and shadow, old gods and new names, ancient fear and modern comfort.
Christmas works because the ritual still works. Inner alchemy occurs when you see through the mask. When you stop consuming the myth and begin reading the symbols. Christmas is not evil. It is incomplete. It is a threshold ritual, asking one question humanity has always feared to answer.
What do you do when the light disappears? Those who understand Christmas do not fear the dark. They know it is part of the cycle. Saturn devours, but he also renews.
Time destroys, but it also transforms. The lie is not the darkness. The lie is pretending it isn’t there. That is the deepest mystery of Christmas.
© TheSacred
Notes to Readers:
Sol Invictus = Invincible Sun, the Sun god of ancient Rome
The many strands of legend, myth, ancient pagan practices, embellished upon by consumerism has created the Christmas now celebrated throughout many parts of the world.
It is ultimately based on the return of the Light, of the sun, in the northern hemispheres, on the 25th of December to January 6th, depending on what calendar you follow.
The return of the Light speaks of the return to Christ Consciousness, a remembrance of what we are truly, fractals of Source Creator.
Light = intelligence, information… remembrance.
In this Christmas season, let us begin to remember our true origin, as the light that informs us, warms us, and carries us into the new world of enlightenment, of grace, compassion, abundance.
It’s not about trinkets or empty gifts, but taking back what is ours, ever was ours even though it was taken away for a time. Yet, the cycles always move on and fate reverses upon those who sought to keep humanity enslaved. Their time is ending. Saturn’s grip is ending. Time as we have known it is ending.
Seek to connect with the Light within, your connection to Source. Creator never abandoned you. Fear blocked access to the peace that passes understanding. Courage will unlock the door and allow you to pass through… into the Light.
Read the comments following this article. They give more insight into the ancient origins of the Christmas we celebrate today. The festival has nothing to do with the birth of the long-awaited Savior.
In Joy,
Eliza
Sunny's Journal 