Mythic Perspective: The Meaning of Sunday
A common theme in this COVID-19 era is that without our established productivity-driven schedules, our accepted concept of time is deteriorating. We’re accustomed to living from day to day, treating each one as merely a stepping stone to the next. Ancient cultures, some much more reflective than our own, saw each of the seven days as possessing a unique quality of its own, like a color in the rainbow or a note in the scale. In this series, I look at the gods for whom the days were named and how connecting to these archetypes can add meaning to our daily lives.
The Day of the Sun
The word Sunday comes from Sunna, an Old High German name for the sun goddess. For the Germanic tribes, the sun and moon goddesses were twins, eternally racing through the heavens, chased by wolves. They did not participate in human affairs, but their reliable movement gave man a way to tell time.
To the Romans, Sunday was dies Solis, the Day of Sol. Sol is a synthesis of three Greek deities: Hyperion, Helios, Apollo.
Hyperion is a Titan, a son of Gaea (Earth) and Ouranos (Sky), a god of watchfulness, wisdom, and light, the great all-seeing eye of heaven.
Helios, Hyperion’s son, is the personification of the Sun, a life-giving god of creation whose glowing warmth brings joy to the…
