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Let me add one point to what was said: the colour of the Chelleh festival is the colour of love/Mehr and is red, for the same reason Suhrawardi points to in The Red Intellect. This is the ancient Iranian belief that red is the colour of the meeting of light and darkness, like the red of sunset, sunrise, or the colour of cold dark iron when it is placed upon fire, the worldly symbol of light.

This also refers to an ancient myth according to which, when Ahriman attacked the world created by Ahura Mazda, Ahura Mazda recited the sacred hymn against him and Ahriman realised there was no escape from this world. He tried to flee the material world, but the deity Mithra blocked his path in the heavens and he became trapped in the material realm. Thus Mithra became red-hued, the mediating deity and deity of the middle world. The fravahars of good human beings came to his aid so that Ahriman’s work could be brought to an end in this world, the material world, and the primordial battle between light and darkness began. In this interpretation, Iranians wearing red at Chelleh and the red symbols of the night refer to their standing beside Mithra in this cosmic struggle.

We bring the colour red into the longest night to announce dawn and the return of the sun in the heart of the darkest night—to declare that we ourselves are the return of this dawn, and that with dancing and song at the height of darkness’s dominion we go forward to welcome the light. In this account, this is also the symbolic background of red-coloured movements in Iranian history, such as the red-clad followers of Khorramdin. Likewise, the philosophers’ stone in alchemy is red; and before the golden colour of the Father in the Mithraic tradition, red is the highest colour. The same belief, the source argues, was borrowed by the Christian church from Mithraism, becoming the red robes of cardinals before the golden robes of the Pope/Father, the red clothing of Santa Claus/Father Christmas, and the official colour of the birth of Christ and Christmas.

The red pomegranate we place at the heart of the Chelleh table is also a symbol of our individuation and unity on the path toward the victory of Mehr.

May Chelleh be auspicious and victorious for the people of the land of Mehr.