Page 4 - MFMJan 2016

Greetings from the Grand East
Brian J. Murphy, Grand Master
During these dark hours of
Solstice’s extended nights and short
days, I dig through the files of my
mind in search of a particular,
consciously-taken, mental snapshot
of the longest day of the year, back
in June; when the temperatures were
in the mid 90s; when I donned shorts
and flipflops; sweat-soaked after
having just mowed the yard for the
fourth time; days when the whole spectrum of
Nature was in full glory and the very air ripe and
blooming with its fragrances. If I concentrate, I
can almost smell freshly mown grass and hear
bees.
Now, as I stand bone-tired and aching with
frosted breath amidst waist-deep piles of newly
shoveled show, I pause with purpose and intent
to gaze and reflect upon the perfect wonder
of Winter deep. In my mind, I take another
snapshot to capture the muffled, pristinely
billowed landscape, with its heavily blanketed
pines; soft pillowed shrubbery festooned with
muted Holiday lights; and the protruding, frozen
skeletons of barren perennial stems. In turn,
retrieved from the memory vault, I will recollect
this Winter portrait next Summer, on Solstice, in
June, and gleam in the course of doing so.
Abandoned by our sun, we hibernate and appeal
for its return. For millennia, this time of year
has been primarily associated with one thing…
fear. Picture yourself thousands of years ago in
Northern Europe. There are four seasons. And
of those, you are afraid of only one… Winter.
Spring provides opportunities to plant and grow;
Summer is abundant; a bountiful harvest occurs
in Fall, wherein you are able to hunt, gather and
store. But Winter is focused on one thing only…
survival. The triggering event is Solstice. The
low sun hugs the horizon, providing little light.
There is real fear that it may not return. Will your his enlightenment. He will also augment it and
food cache last? The screaming wind causes you
to tremble with the thought that your god, Odin,
accompanied by his wolves, is on his annual
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ride, flying mightily across the sky
on his eight-legged steed, Sleipnir,
to vanquish the weak.
Life is permeated with fear.
Contrastingly, when confronted
with uncertainty and the tangibility
of death, humankind celebrates life
by partying like there is literally
no tomorrow. Eat, drink and be
merry, for tomorrow we may die. Festivals of
Light, as old as culture, evolved into traditions
worldwide: Santa Lucia in Sweden, the Lighting
of Advent Candles in France, St. Martin’s in
Holland, Thailand has Loi Krathong, Chinese
New Year in January, Hanukkah, Diwali in India,
to name but a few. Back as far as 217 BC, the
Romans celebrated around the Winter Solstice
with a festival they called Saturnalia in honor of
the God Saturn. This migrated North where the
Nordics shaped Yuletide.
Light can not be taken lightly. For primitive
man, the absence of light, by impairing his
ability to see, seemed to plunge the world
into nothingness. Thus, even from the earliest
times, we find darkness, as the negation of light,
regarded as a cause of fear and, therefore, of
evil. The Ancient Mysteries, which coexisted
with and underlay the conventional religions
of those far-off times, developed the idea of
Light as a symbol of Knowledge and Truth.
Thus we find that they all regarded its opposite
as representative of Ignorance and Error. It is in
this form that Freemasonry, the heiress of all the
Systems of Initiation, has received the concept.
The Light of a Master Mason is Darkness
Visible. If he can see the effects of malice,
envy and self-seeking, the corroding influence
of prejudice and intolerance, if his search for
the Lost word serves increasingly to show how
much he, himself, still has to learn, he will retain
regenerate himself anew.