Reflections on a Solstice
Sunday was the summer solstice which, in the northern hemisphere, is the day with the longest duration of the day. Many traditions of witchcraft celebrate solstices and equinoxes as a way of keeping in tune with the seasons, but where I live we don't really have the four "classical" season. The solstice is the longest day, which means that after that the night start encroaching again, but you would be hard pressed to notice it here. We have just entered the period when the sun sets but doesn't really sink far below the horizon, and the night stretches into a cerulean limbo until morning comes again.
I love the cerulean limbo.
There is no better example of a liminal space than summer night time in subpolar regions.
Everything is silent, because it's nighttime and because it's also the period in which people desert the city and go on holiday. Everything feels suspended, as if waiting for something that nobody quite knows what it is. Songbird are singing, because in their mind it's dawn (and they're not wrong, technically). When I'm out during this time I experience a sense of unity with the whole world, a peace so profound that it neighbours a spiritual revelation.
This year I find myself, yet again, exhausted. Too many obligations, too many wishes, and a body that can, with the most generosity, be described as capricious. I'm so tired that I have no trouble falling asleep, but I know that I am not sleeping as well as I do in winter. I hope I will be fine. I hope I'll manage at least once to stay awake and just bask in the blue silence.