Motto: “And still, after all this time, the Sun has never said to the Earth, ‘You owe me.’ Look what happens with love like that. It lights up the sky.” Jalal ad-Din Rumi Persian Poet, Mystic.
By Gabriel Gherasim
Yesterday my wife and I went to the Clermont State Historic Site to enjoy a beautiful November day, when the autumnal foliage prepares the trees for the winter.
There were many visitors congregating on this estate where the sun, the sky, the air, the Hudson river, the surrounding hills and the ground, speak volumes in terms of the quintessential art of nature which, if we are open, willing and able to visit and contemplate, is freely given to us, for our admiration and gratitude.
At some point I realized that, as the sun was getting ready to set a –for a lack of a better term- magical experience occurred, where all distraction ceased and a sheer sense of joy permeated every fiber of my body, mind and spirit, as I felt being part of a privileged audience.
The idea that such beauty could be freely given to us, no demands and no expectation, is so incomprehensible perhaps, that we often tend to move away from being in the moment and to tap into the gratitude which behooves to those whom these gifts were brought to by a loving Creator.
What children on Christmas day and dogs wagging their tails in the parks seem to know as a fact, it escapes often to sophisticated, ‘scientific’ reductionist based and entitlement guided folks, or in the least, to the indifferent and aloof lot among us.
It dawned on me that whether that park had been full with gawking or respectfully adoring human beings, or without a human soul in site, the almighty sun would still have permeated the world with its creating glory, which, from the life giving photosynthesis of the plants, to the symbiotic interacting of plants and animals and the continued transmission of its benefic rays in Nature, simply makes life possible for all of us.
From the original European language the Thracian Daco-Romanian (Ledwith, Micheal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gq_1Z-JOReA ) the word “Soare” (Sun) arrived in the English language via the Celtic migrations to Ireland from Dacia as the verb “to soar.” The Latins also brought it from Dacia as “Aura” that life-giving breath from which the Daco-Romanian word “Aur” (Gold) was coined.
So the sun is the soaring breath of life which can best be reflected (not created) by gold.
To and for such an invaluable entity, the most important day of the week Sun-day was assigned, also known as the day of the Lord (“Domnul”), or “Duminica,” with its derivatives in other Romance languages such as “domenica, dimanche, domingo, etc.”
The other days of the weeks were relegated to less ‘important’ planets which in some cases became objects of adorations for other religions. Thus, “Luni” is Monday, Moon-day; “Marti” is Tuesday, Mars’ day; “Miercuri” is Wednesday, Mercury’s day; “Joi” is Thursday, aka Thor’s Day, Jupiter’s day; “Vineri” is Friday, Venus’ day, Islam’s holy day; and “Sambata” is Saturday, Saturn’s day, Judaism’s holy day.
The Latins continued the adoration of the sun calling it “Sol-Invictus” (The Invincible Sun), which was the official Sun God of the later Roman Empire and a patron of soldiers. They named the life preserving salt “Sal” after the sun “Sol” and the soldiers who were originally paid in salt, became the contemporary “soldiers.”
The Egyptians called the Sun Amun-Ra, the Creative Power responsible for all life in the Universe and on Earth. From them we have left the conclusive “Amen”, as the respect we wittingly or unwittingly give to the “Soare” at the end of our prayers, in at least three major religions of the world.
The original European population the Dacians, had no qualms to shoot arrows ‘into the sky’ to break up the clouds from covering its beloved sun, and there were elite priestesses dedicated to sacred dancing to the sun called ‘horae’ still present today as a bona-fide order of Daco-Romanian mysterious Christian nuns congregated at the Horez monastery in Romania, which justifiably is a World Heritage Centre ( https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/597/ ).
Since the nuns couldn’t dance anymore to the celebration of the “Soare”, this was left as a celebratory dance to be performed on specific ritual and lay occasions by the Daco-Romanians at large and is the Romanian National Dance “Hora.” ( http://www.romaniamagicland.com/2011/01/hora-romanian-traditional-dance.html ).
Outside Dacia-Romania, the Hora was brought to Palestine by the Jewish colonists from that country and became the National dance of Israel as well.
Incidentally, this was also the case with the Israeli anthem. In 1888, Samuel Cohen borrowed a melody based on a Romanian folk song which “fit Hatikva like a glove,” according to Israeli Musicologist Dr. Natan Shahar, as per The Times of Israel. Cohen adapted this tune from a nostalgic Romanian folkloric song called “Carul cu boi,” ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adTjy-TIW_Q ) which translates as “Cart with Oxen.”
If in Dacia-Romania the priestesses of the “Soare” the horae, were able to survive and amalgamate within the National Romanian Orthodox church, they were harshly punished and decimated in Egypt by the Muslim invaders and in the West, by the Catholic Inquisition and the Protestant churches’ “witch-hunts” alike, where after centuries of ad-hominem attacks were reduced to the present terms of insult such as “Whores” and “Harlots,” women of ignominious repute.
From having respectful adorations, to having human sacrifices committed in the Sun’s name in various continents of the East and West of Dacia, to being placed as “second best” by the Saturnian and Venusian religious followers, to being denied, minimized, blamed or ignored in its creative values, the almighty “Soare” continues impervious to our attitudes, to give us light and life, perhaps giving homage and gratitude to His Creator and to ours.
In my moments of great joy, appreciation and admiration for the Sun, I simply feel that my gratitude towards its majestic beauty benefits foremost my own spiritual, mental and physical well-being.
And perhaps, by learning from its modesty of splendor to shine and create as a purpose of one’s existence, as opposed to being a creator and create conditionally, in response to, or as a reaction to others’ validation and adoration, we too may do our best to simply create and love and cherish others, regardless of their appreciation for our sacrifices.
For the night passed and today as always, the almighty “Soare” radiates its creating force again, irrespective of our existing or absent validation for His life-giving gift and beauty.