 
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. But who is he? Where did he come from? How did a jolly, ruby-cheeked fat man sporting a snow white beard and dressed in red velvet come to embody the spirit of love and giving associated with the teachings and birth 2000 years ago of a Jewish carpenter? Myths and legend serve as signposts for cultures. They instruct people how to live in balance with themselves and their world. These stories are the rites of passage which guide us and keep us in synchronicity with nature. But all too quickly people lose the significance and meaning of a ritual while holding onto the performance of the act. The original purpose of Memorial Day was to honor the Civil War dead. It was only years later that the holiday was extended to honoring all war dead. Yet today, only slightly more than 100 years later, the original intent of the ceremony has been forgotten, and for many people the holiday has become only a day off work, and a time to engage in sporting events. Mistletoe was sacred to the Greeks and Romans, and originated when lightning struck a tree, and the tree didn't burn. For them, mistletoe was the agent of life energy, and was linked to sexual energy, the creative force. Germanic tribes believed that everyone who passed under mistletoe was kissed by Freya, their goddess of fertility. Today, remnants of this belief are still intrinsically part of our culture. And what of Santa Claus? The roots of the modern Santa Claus are easy to access. In 1626 a ship with settlers from the Netherlands arrived in America. Known in Dutch as "Sinter Claes," they brought with them Saint Nickolas, the patron saint of sailors, and their custom of celebrating the Winter Solstice. A century and half later, long after the Dutch colony had disappeared, Clement C. Moore wrote the now famous poem, A Visit From Santa Claus, which begins with the engaging sentence, "T'was the night before Christmas...". In the poem, Santa is described as an elf-like figure. Four decades later, the poem was illustrated for Harper's magazine by cartoonist Thomas Nast. He took literary license and drew Santa Claus as a gnome-like character dressed in animal skins, wearing a white beard and carrying a bag of goodies -- a winter figure he remembered from stories originating in mountain villages in the Bavarian Alps. It was in 1931, however, when Coca Cola Company, wanting in increase sales to children, came up with the jolly figure of Santa Claus we know today. And the rest, as they say, is history. Santa, and Coca Cola, spread throughout the world. But what of Santa before the Dutch brought Sinter Claes to America? The origins of Santa can be traced back to the gods Herne and Pan of early Neolithic hunter-gatherer societies. To these clans of people living 10,000 years ago, Pan represented the all-encompassing Spirit of Nature. The word Pan is loosely translated as "all encompassing," and to these peoples living intimately with nature, Pan represented the duality of the world -- life and death, creation and destruction, light and dark. Pan was typically represented as a fur-covered, horned, benevolent yet mischievous figure. Vestiges of this characterization are seen today in Kokopelli, the Casanova trickster flute player of native North America traditions. The shaman, who was the healer, seer, herbalist and counselor of the native clans would frequently embody the spirit of Pan -- today called channeling -- and provide information necessary for the group's survival, and for maintaining balance in their lives and world. One way of keeping balance was celebrating the Winter Solstice, the time when the invincible sun god was resurrected and triumphed over the power of darkness. The themes of an all encompassing Spirit of Nature is universal to all indigenous cultures, and can be seen in the Tsungus of Siberia, the Aborigine of Australia, native of North and South America, and the forest peoples of Old Europe. With the introduction of Christianity and an anthropomorphic -- in the image of man -- god, Pan was embodied by the Christian tradition as a way of bringing the people of the conquered lands into the fold. In the sixth century, Pope Gregorius the Great wrote a letter to the English Bishop Augustinius stating, "Do not destroy pagan temples, but make them into Christian churches named after saints. Out of custom, the people will continue coming and will venerate their new God. Their animal sacrifices should be maintained but changed; instead of being sacrifices, they will supply a Christian meal in the honor of God." The Catholic Saint Nicholas, our most recent predecessor of the modern Santa Claus, was a compilation of two separate saints, one from Asia minor and another from Pinora. Both were water deities that became Christianized, possibly in response to Pope Gregorius' instructions. In the 1870's, the Vatican Council II formally stated that no Roman Catholic Bishop by the name of Nicholas ever existed and that legends about him were of pagan origin. Through time and traditions lost, yet remembered at some internal level, the Old Spirit Pan was embodied in Saint Nicholas, and Saint Nicholas became the bringer of love and gifts. The celebration of the Winter Solstice, the return of the Invincible Sun, was picked by the church as the birthdate of Christ. Noel, the French word for Christmas, comes from the Latin work natalis, which means birthday. In ancient Rome, this birthday referred to the Winter Solstice. So what does all of this have to do with us today? What is the point of tracing the origins of the fat man laughing and handing out gifts back to the medicine person of native tribes? As a culture, and a people, we have forgotten our roots. We have forgotten the myths and legends that connect us to each other, and to the nature that we, despite our faxes and grand machines, are intimately part of. And Christmas, despite talk of the "spirit of the season" has become a commercial holiday around which much of the world's economy revolves. We have localized the invincible power of nature which resides in each and every one of us to one person born 2000 years ago. The origins of Santa Claus should remind us that we are intrinsically part of the cold wind whistling past our window as we huddle in front of a fire waiting for the Invincible Sun to return. Santa should remind us that Pan, the all encompassing Spirit of Nature, is just that, all encompassing. We, all of us, are included within the beauty of a rose opening and seeing the sun for the first time, or a hatchling stretching its wings, or the gentle babble of a brook speaking to us in a language we could understand if we choose to become still. So when the jolly bearded man visits you this year, remember that the Spirit of Nature resides within each of us, and that the same creative potential which informs galaxies and sunflowers connects us to each other, and to our mother, the planet we call home, the being that gives us shelter. And just as one cannot separate Mozart from his music, we cannot separate ourselves from ourselves. So, yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. And he lives within the love and beauty and compassion in each of us. Merry Christmas. Dr. Richard Sandore is a Western-trained physician who now practices Andean Shamanism and Energy Healing. He also writes, lectures, and through Soaring Spirit, Inc., teaches the Shaman's Path workshop series, and provides inspiration and creativity workshops for businesses, designed to bring Spirit back into the workplace. He can be reached at (847) 599-1885.
Next Article |