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Translated by Greg Johnson; Spanish translation here
We are approaching Christmas (another name for the winter solstice). Associated with the evergreen tree, Christmas has always been celebrated in European countries since time immemorial as the great feast presaging the revival of nature and life after the repose of winter.One cannot help but think that Europe, too, will one day emerge from its current Dormition, even if it is longer than the cycle of nature.
Christmas is for children. It is also a celebration where beauty has its place. Is it not the occasion to reflect upon this vital concept, one of the three components of the “Homeric triad“: “Nature as the foundation, excellence as a goal, the beauty of the horizon”?
Rather than a dissertation on beauty, I want to offer to those who read me some practical advice, without, however, neglecting a meditative reflection: aesthetics grounds ethics (the good is defined by what is beautiful) and ethics grounds aesthetics (the good is inseparable from the beautiful).
Cultivate beauty (aesthetic sense) for yourself and your loved ones. Beauty is not a matter of money and consumption. It resides in all things, primarily in the small details of life.
Beauty is given freely by nature: the poetry of clouds in a bright sky, the patter of rain on a tent, starry nights, sunsets in summer, the first snowflakes, the colors of the forest in winter, the first flowers in the garden, the hooting of the owl at night, the smell of a wood fire above a cottage in the country . . .
If the beauty of nature is given to us, the beauty we create in our lives requires effort and attention.
Remember that there is no beauty (or joy) without harmony of colors, materials, shapes, and styles. This is true for the home, clothing, and small accessories of life. Avoid synthetic and plastic materials in favor of natural ones.
There is no beauty without courtesy in dealings with those close and distant (except jerks).
I noted that aesthetics is the foundation of ethics. Indeed, there is no beauty without moral and physical poise. For example, keep your pains and troubles, those of the heart, body, and work to yourself for the difficult months. You’ll gain esteem for your discretion and a reputation for good company. You will also gain esteem for yourself.
Merry Christmas to all!
Source: http://www.dominiquevenner.fr/2012/12/noel-la-beaute-dans-la-vie/
4 Comments
“Christmas (another name for the winter solstice)”.
This is simply false. While Christmas may have replaced, and in some respects co-opted aspects of, ancient pagan winter solstice festivals (as did many Christian festivals throughout the year), the two are not synonymous. Christmas – the Christ Mass – is not simply equivalent to the Winter Solstice, and it is intellectually and theologically facile to make such a claim.
Sadly, this type of claim is all too typical of certain right-wing neo-pagans, who minimize Christianity’s indispensable role in building Westernm, European Culture as we’ve known it over the last 2000 years (as Belloc said, “Europe is the Faith, and the Faith is Europe.”), and wish to eradicate it no less than their nominal opponents on the Left, who would like to destroy not only Christianity but Western Culture altogether, and see white, Christian, European culture as the font of all evil in the world.
Christmas + Winter solstice = XMAS
X for the Cross , and for the wheel of the seasons.
The Christianity as Europe experienced it is in terminal decline, we are in the stage of getting something new which has a racial priority for our european people, rather than the multi-cultural based christianity. IMHO it died just before WW1 as industrial capitalism put the $ at the head of everything.
I wonder what he would think of the yellow vests in his beloved France? I think he would be very happy to see it finally happen and who knows what deep feelings his suicide triggered and we finally understand. Nothing left to lose. Perhaps it is the Shock of History. (in the making) I miss his wise words.
We should be grateful that Odinists, Druids and Christians can celebrate Yule-Christmas in relative freedom. In the Marxist USSR it was not so, all White religions were banned. Let us remember the White Genocide we survived, that of the Marxist USSR 1917-1991 in which Whites could practice none of our religions: https://www.celtic-films.com