Imagination, magic and illusion, resilient resources

In the face of difficult times, certain celebratory rituals loaded with symbolism have potential.

In all European cultures, we find traditions around the winter solstice traditions around the winter solstice that are 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 desire to celebrate that the Sun is winning the night after the longest nightfall of the year. Saturnalia coincides with the end of the work in the fields, after the winter sowing, when the seasonal rhythm leads us to rest and recollection.

A recollection around the light of the fire, a propitious environment to narrate, to tell, to help transcend collective fears and to create equally collective illusions of better times.

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

The roots of this tradition

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

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

While the wax figures were delivered to the altars of Saturn, the terracotta toys loaded with symbolism were kept and 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 virile toga. Some of these terracotta figurines, as dolls, have appeared in graves of women who died young.

The symbolic charge of solstice traditions.

That attempt to protect childhood and extend that protection beyond, to guarantee a period, however short, very short, of quiet calm, family warmth and the illusion of a world of protective beings who provide us with the fantasy of a welcoming, prosperous and better world, does not cease to be 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 the 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, 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 come out from under the blanket.

The Basque Olentzero takes up the pre-Christian pagan tradition of celebrating the winter solstice, related to fire. We meet again with the log and the fire, in the mythological charcoal burner who initially gave nuts and coal and nowadays distributes Christmas gifts.

We are going to meet the most varied characters in charge of delivering the presents.. In Italy, the witch Befana, who accompanies the Three Wise Men on their journey. In Slovenia we have three wise old men who deliver gifts on different days. In Austria, among their customs, we find the Tyrolean goblin or demon Krampus, who has become more popular than St. Nicholas himself. This goblin warns that if children do not behave well, St. Nicholas will not bring them gifts. In Iceland we have 13 trolls, in Greece and Cyprus, on St. Basil's Day, January 1, gifts are brought under a miniature boat. In Lapland we have Santa Claus' village and house, in Korvatunturii, only reindeer are able to get there.

Among us there is the very popular Three Kings Day. And we also have traditions such as the Three Kings' cake 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 childhoodthat feeds that symbolic magical world of childhood where everything is possible and hope is easily imaginable.

Illusion as a source of resilience

Just before Christmas, in 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 expected full of surprises and gifts, together with the pleasure of tasting typical and delicious products from their land and countries of origin.

Not only was the glow of illusion and magic awakened in the eyes of the participating children, but also in their mothers we found that glow that provides the ingenuity of children's imagination, where everything is possible, when recalling their customs around Christmas or the solstice.

They, the adult mothers, rushed to that lost childhood where the fragility of the vulnerability of infancy, the vibrant energy of childhood and the resilience provided by the imagination of the symbolic magical world reign.

Research shows how imaginative children have a greater capacity to cope with traumatic situations, and how that imagination becomes a source of resilience.How this imagination becomes a resource to face adversity by finding imaginative solutions that provide them with the warmth and calm that they do not find in the present.

The adult needs more than just dreaming of a better time. You will need experiences of the present to encourage and believe in that possibility, and there is no doubt that the ability to imagine a safer and more reliable future encourages us all to move forward, from children to adults, and becomes a resource regardless of age.

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

Let us maintain and nurture the illusion and the 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 books on attachment..