In the Pastures of the Sun: Seven Sensuous and Sacred Plays for Every Season

All ancient cultures worshipped the Sun, often in the form of an incarnated human being whose biography contained features strikingly similar to those in the archetypal solar myth cited by Manly Hall. Not just Jesus of the Christians but Krishna of the Hindus, Mishra of the Persians, and Quetzalcoatl of the Mayans, for example, were all said to have birthdays on December 25. These plays celebrate each of the festivals which observes a mythic point of significant development in the career of the archetypal solar hero, who is considered a world savior, an avatar, a messiah, and who plays a prominent role in most theologies of the ancient world. Taken together, therefore, the solar festivals illuminate a metaphysical system, most likely older than civilization itself, based upon the cyclical rhythms of the seasons applied to the life story of an archetypal human being.