In the U.S., as soon as Thanksgiving turkey is eaten, people's plans turn to what has come to be called "the holiday season." That label, although bland, is appropriate because some of the most festive celebrations of a number of faith-traditions all fall in December: Obviously, Christianity's Christmas. And Judaism's Hanukkah. Also the less known but beautiful home-ceremonies of Kwanzaa, out of African-American culture. However, even before the December convergence of those holidays occurs, the Indian-American community has gotten a jump on celebration with the ancient festival of Diwali. And that celebration can shed some light on those other holidays, as well as upon our human relationship with the natural world.
The name "Diwali" is derived from the Sanskrit phrase "row of lamps." In India, there are variations depending in which region it is being celebrated, and whether the people celebrating are Hindus, Jains, or Sikhs. But it is the lighting of small clay oil lamps that has resulted in its sometimes being referred to as "the festival of lights."
It is hard to express to someone who does not live in a city with a significant Indian population how popular Diwali is, but one Diwali gathering in the suburb of one large U.S. city drew thousands of celebrants. One autumn, I dropped in for a vegetarian buffet at an Indian restaurant, and found myself in a crowd of people buying sweets for Diwali -- a crowd so focused on one task that it resembled Christmas shoppers.
I cannot help but notice that all four of the latter-fall or early-winter festivals I have mentioned involve the lighting of candles or oil lamps: The four weekly Advent candles before Christmas. The eight daily-lit candles of the Jewish menorah. The Kwanzaa candles representing different virtues. And the oil lamps of Diwali.
No matter which way we celebrate "the holiday season," as we call it, and no matter which way we celebrate the multi-layered meanings of symbols about light and darkness, one thing will certainly remain true. Tomorrow, the sun will rise; and in the Northern Hemisphere in the weeks following the winter solstice, the days will grow longer again. That phenomenon has occurred for over 4 billion years, which calculates out to 1.46 trillion days. Moreover, scientists tell us the sun will pull that trick of rising for billions of years still to come.
Although the return of light and the human need for illumination, both physical and spiritual, are the most obvious symbols of our four late-year holidays, I have come to think that there is another component as well: Namely, beauty. The candles we light don't merely illuminate the room we are in. (If that was all we needed, we could just turn on the overhead fluorescents.) The candles we light, especially if in a dimmed or darkened rooms, are like the pinpoints of stars in a black velvet sky. The contrast of light and dark creates a harmony of contrasts we can experience as being beautiful. Moreover, when we light those holiday candles, just as when we look out into the depths of a dark, starlit sky, we can feel a depth to our lives, and a depth in all of human existence.
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Do you have a particular, special memory of one of these four celebrations?
(The photograph of Diwali decorations is by Subharnab Majumdar
and is used under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.)
1 comment:
I remember when I was a small child and my parents drove around different neighborhoods at night so that we could see the Christmas lights people had put on their houses or bushes. Here and there in a window of a house we would see a tiered set of lights looking like a candelabra. My parents told me that might be a menorah, which would mean that the people who lived there were Jewish. I think it might have been my first awareness that there were people who were of a religion other than Christianity who were living around us.
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