So what is the connection between devouring children and a superabundance of grain? The clue lies in the Greek god’s name: Chronos, or Time. It’s all an elaborate choreography of death and life. In the main versions of the myth, Chronos eventually regurgitated his children intact (the original Olympians) at his wife’s urging.

Time devours everything and everyone in the end. Saturnalia is a profound mythic meditation on death and rebirth, the refreshing cycles of natural time that make it seem obvious to celebrate life in the deadest season of the year, and to remember our losses at the high-point of the party.

via For Saturn’s Sake, Remember the Dead | Religion Dispatches.