Imagination, magic and illusion, resilient resources

In all European cultures we find traditions around the winter solstice that come laden with gifts.

The Roman Saturnalia, dedicated to Saturn, God of death, were celebrated from December 17 to 23, lit by torches and candles, making them coincide with the winter solstice, in that eagerness to celebrate that the Sun is going to win the night after the longest sunset of the year. Saturnalia coincide with the completion of the field work, after the winter sowing, when the seasonal rhythm leads us to rest and recollection.

A retreat around the light of the fire, an environment conducive to narrating, telling, helping to transcend collective fears and creating equally collective illusions of better times.

Time to rejoice with the little ones and encourage innocence and naivety and charge them with prosperity. Time to transcend vulnerability, fear and insecurity and encourage an immediate future filled with the prosperity of the humble and symbolic gifts that were projected up to the transit rituals from childhood to adolescence or early adulthood.

The roots of this tradition

On that last day of Saturnalia, the day of Figlinaria, a name due to the wax and terracotta figurines that were given to the most small and also surprisingly among adults, gifts loaded with symbolism were received, along with nuts and baskets of groceries.

According to Pilar Caldera, an anthropologist, nuts were not only symbolic fruits and toys of Roman childhood, but also that were also part of the rituals of passage to adolescence, called "relinque nuces" (abandon walnuts).

While the wax figures were delivered to the altars of Saturn, the symbolism-laden terracotta toys were put away and They treasured together with their symbolism of good omens, and thus the men gave them to the gods as an offering on the day they took the toga virile. Some of these terracotta figurines, like dolls, have appeared in the graves of women who died young.

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The Symbolic Charge of Solstice Traditions

This attempt to protect children and extend that protection further, to guarantee a period, even if it is short, very short of calm calm, family warmth and illusion of a world of protective beings that provide us with the fantasy of a welcoming, prosperous and better world, it does not stop being it is a cultural group attempt that transcends borders and spreads through towns and villages, each with its own iconography, in the northern hemisphere, associated with that light that begins to gain ground after the winter solstice, the longest night of the year.

In Catalan mythology we find the Tió de Nadal, a Christmas log, a log that is collected in Advent and covered with a blanket and fed every night until Christmas Eve. The children of each house sing and hit the log with sticks, so that the gifts emerge from under the blanket.

The Basque Olentzero collects the pre-Christian pagan tradition of the celebration of the winter solstice, related to fire. We meet again with the trunk and the fire, in the mythological charcoal burner who initially gave away nuts and coal and currently distributes Christmas gifts.

We are going to meet the most diverse characters in charge of delivering the gifts. Thus in Italy, the witch Befana who accompanies her on her trip to the Magi does. In Slovenia we have three wise old men who distribute gifts on different days. In Austria among his customs, we find the Tyrolean goblin or demon Krampus, who has achieved more popularity than Saint Nicholas himself. This elf warns that if the children do not behave well, Saint Nicholas will not bring them gifts. In Iceland we have 13 trolls, in Greece and Cyprus, on Saint Basil's day, January 1, gifts appear under a miniature ship. In Lapland we have the village and the house of Santa Claus, in Korvatunturii, only the reindeer are able to get there.

Among us is the so popular Three Kings Day. And we also find traditions such as the rosco de Reyes or the Cyprus cake, in which we can find the aba or the lucky coin for the whole year.

All these traditions, regardless of their iconography, share the need for an illusion that maintains the magic of childhood, which feeds that symbolic magical world of childhood where everything is possible and hope is easily imaginable.

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Illusion as a source of resilience

Just before Christmas, at Vitaliza Psicología de la Salud, we started a workshop with immigrant families; Each family came from very different cultures with different traditions and all of them shared in common the illusion for these dates that They waited loaded with surprises and gifts, along with the pleasure of tasting typical and delicious products from their land and countries of source.

Not only did the illusion and magic shine in the eyes of the participating children, we also found that in their mothers brightness that provides the naivety of children's imagination, where everything is possible, when recalling their customs around Christmas or the solstice.

They, adult mothers, rushed into that lost childhood where the fragility of vulnerability reigns of childhood, the vibrant energy of childhood and the resilience brought by the imagination of the wizarding world symbolic.

Research shows how imaginative children have a greater ability to cope with traumatic situationsHow that imagination becomes a resource to face adversity by finding fanciful solutions that provides them with the warmth and calm they cannot find in the present.

The adult needs something more than dreaming in a better time. You will need experiences in the present that allow you to encourage and believe in that possibility, and there is no doubt that the ability to imagining a safer and more reliable future encourages all of us to move on, children to adults, and becomes a resource whatever age.

Today yes... today more than ever dreaming and envisioning the end of the pandemic helps us to continue, to continue protecting ourselves and enjoying the immediate closeness and dreams that we all create.

Let's keep and take care of illusion and imagination in childhood because it is a resource that protects and encourages us in adulthood.

Author: Cristina Corte Viniegra, Psychologist, director of Vitaliza and author of attachment books.