I’m in California today, leaving for my East Coast home tomorrow, on the strawberry full moon, which means I’m avoiding the current heat wave out east … but there is no avoiding climate change.
On the soft winds this morning, I can smell waves of smoke from the wildfires just a few hours north of me, and am sending prayers to our friends who are being evacuated due to the fires in New Mexico. We can not live in these times, those of us called to seek and to serve Earth, without feeling the heat, and its many, many, many ramifications. (There’s been some great articles out about air conditioning - which both enabled cities to boom in the sweltering heat of the southwest, enabled Congress to have longer summer sessions, and is, responsible for a significant portion of climate emissions.)
At summer solstice, I tend to notice: the light is bright and the shadows are sharp. Just as winter solstice looks towards the coming summer, summer solstice has a kind of nod to the upcoming fall and winter. I invite you to do both: to dance, to sing, to celebrate the glory of summer, while also noting what might be easy-to-see in the sharpness of the shadows.
Summer Solstice is not a federal holiday in the United States - which notes ecological shifts, especially in farmer’s almanacs and calendars, but does not design them important enough to take the day off. Perhaps Juneteenth, with its colorful celebrations, is coming to serve some of that energy. In general, I think it has been the Fourth of July that has served as the ‘height of summer celebration energy’. While I don’t think this was the original intention, the Fourth of July has come to be a real folk holiday, complete with some absurd forms of Americana. In the absence of a proper relationship with fire, is it so surprising that we keep turning to fireworks? (Which, as a student reminded me recently, are just awful for birds, often scaring them away from their nests).
I’m in the midst of preparing for our upcoming Fourth of July online gathering (with quite possibly an offline component as well). It’s such an important conversation, one that is not had enough: where does this country, and where does democracy itself, come from? I do hope you can join us.
