The Longest Day

Well, here it is: the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere. The summer solstice, or Midsummer.

I will be living in two of the worlds I inhabit today: attending a 35th-anniversary celebration for the conservation organization I founded back in the 90s, and then going to a solstice gathering with Pagan friends. Hopefully a good mix.

By contrast with the huddling-together-against-the-cold-and-darkness of the winter solstice, Midsummer is, rather than a stubborn persistence in the face of adversity, rather a benign and pleasant time. A time for barbecues and outdoor play, relaxation in a hammock. For my European ancestors, it was a time between sowing and reaping, when mostly you just hung out and waited for things to grow.

And of course, we celebrate the Sun, without which we would not exist and could never survive. Blazing high overhead, soon to head towards the horizon of the year again, today is the Sun’s day. We do not forget it.

It’s nearly dawn as I write this. Soon, I will bring my Sun broom out to sit in the solstice Sun all day, gathering warmth and brightness into a tool I can use next winter, when I’m feeling oppressed by cold and wet and darkness.

On the Saturday morning Atheopagan Zoom mixer recently, we had a discussion about “beefing up” the summer holidays, which don’t have Overculture equivalents like Christmas. I loved one of the ideas, which was decorating a deciduous tree like a fruit tree, to contrast with the evergreens of winter and capture the ephemeral moment of the surge of life in the warm months. Perhaps a peach tree: they’re perfect in June, and was there ever a sexier, more delicious fruit than a perfectly ripe peach?

These are challenging days, when the world of people has gone mad and it can be really hard to survive. But Midsummer reminds us that the cycles continue to turn and come around again to bright days. The tides come steadily to the shores; the clouds soar the skies. We have seen dark times before and emerged from them.

We will do so again.

So for this Midsummer, my wish for all of you is a meaningful moment of reflection on the big picture, whether that is through a formal ritual or a happy engagement with friends and loved ones. That star burns for us steadily, through it all, and will do so for billions of years yet.

There is time, and when there is time there is hope.