Long Light
writing at summer solstice
Soon we will arrive at the summer solstice, the longest day and shortest night of the year. Marked as the high point of summer since the Neolithic, the solstice was marked by the lighting of bonfires, intensifying the strength of the sun for the rest of the crop season. Standing stone circles were built to align with the sun on the solstices, in Viking tradition scores were settled and raids carried out, in Christian ritual St. John the Baptist was honoured and in pagan tradition, magic was thought to be strongest at midsummer, when the world turns upside down as the sun stands still.
It’s becoming something of my own tradition to hold space for writers around the solstice, a chance to check in with our own practices at this mid point of the year and write into themes of heat, intensity, imbalance, radiance, volatility at sun’s pinnacle.
What does it mean to stand at the peak of something? To feel the pressure of light? To sense the turning even as the day burns at full height?
If you would like to join me, this workshop is happening on Zoom on June 16th at 6pm - 8pm and it’s suitable for anyone.
I would love to see you there!
Even after all this time
the sun never says to the earth,
“You owe me.”Look what happens with
a love like that,
it lights the whole sky.~ Hafez
