The Summer Solstice is a precise planetary moment when the Earth’s tilt reaches its zenith. It’s not a day, or a time (like the New Year), which is celebrated at various times throughout the day as the the Earth rotates through its time zones.
The Solstice happens at an exact moment; the same moment everywhere on Earth.
So says Erin /www.theseasonalsoul.com
Timeless Ways to Celebrate the Power of the Sun
Celebrating the summer solstice started with ancient cultures across the globe. In Ancient Greece, it marked the beginning of the New Year.
The Ancient Romans celebrated it with a religious festival that honored Vesta, the goddess of the hearth.
In Ancient China, it was a time to honor the earth, femininity, and the force known as yin. This celebration included a dragon boat race in Zhejiang, which still occurs.
On the American continent, many Native tribes took part in ceremonial sun dances to celebrate the solstice. Mayan and Aztec people built temples to align precisely with the shadows cast by astrological occurrences, including the solstices. And in England there’s Stonehenge!
Before Christianity took hold of the European continent, Germanic, Celtic, and Slavic groups welcomed the solstice (better known as Midsummer) with feasting and bonfires that were ignited to banish evil spirits and demons, as well as to harness the power of the sun and guarantee a good harvest in fall.
So says Cecilia Seiter /www.slownorth.com
Timeless Words to Honour Hope
This seemed a significant day to share some words about Archbishop Desmond Tutu or “The Arch”, as he is affectionately known. He was South Africa’s moral compass, one of the leading lights of the struggle against apartheid who was not been afraid to condemn injustice wherever he saw it.
We salute him!
At the recent memorial lecture to honour him, this was said by Doug Abrams, where he looked at hope as an agent of resistance in the face of growing despair:
“Hope is the most courageous thing we can do.
Cynicism is an arrogant certainty that we can know the future, and a defence against disappointment.
Hope today is an act of resistance, an act of liberation.”
Antjie Krog so beautifully describes this act of hopeful imagination in her poem dedicated to the Arch:
Praise Song for a Fearless Conscience:
singlehandedly he coined a language of us-ness
for a deeply divided country
he wanted us to be enraged by injustice
he wanted us to assent to the modality of caring
he wanted us to live in solidarity with distribution
he wanted to bind us together in embracing clusters
he wanted to build shelters with us
he wanted to raise great and mighty roofs with us
he wanted to recreate us in frameworks of humanity
As we remember the Arch, may we take up his vision – that the tidal wave of change is made up of a million ripples. May each of us be a ripple of change, making the world a more beautiful, connected, human, and loving place.
So says Janet Jobson, CEO of Desmond & Leah Tutu Foundation
We say Amen to his vision, and share it with you in hope.
