As the longest day in the northern hemisphere shutters her eyes, some sketchings on whether our bodies would have felt the solstice without our calendars to remind us.
Although originally posted to Instagram as a musing, the voice here is the voice of ‘we’, of earth, of nature, fluid and trapped within human tongue, as it’s being written for ‘and so, we burn’, a piece I’m working on that will hopefully, at some point in my lifetime, be finished...!
would your bodies have known today’s solstice, dear loves?
would bodies have felt sun seemingly stand still although standing still she has always done, stretch of daylight pulled tight tight tight to very tips of its toes to its extreme peak curious at what could lie beyond if it could just keep reaching a little higher higher until it can stretch no more now hold hold
hold
before release of letting go, to slow shrink once more downwards towards deathness of winter
ask yourselves, sweet kin, does land
know
solstice
does tree plant flower, do robin and blackbird and seagull and dawn birds insects and otherkin who sing sun awake each morn, all feel this infinite stillness
do our cells know for this days cycle we let our skin our leaves our earth soak beneath and within her, for tomorrow she falls from her teeter, swaying heat drunk towards dark even as this day announces start of what you name summer
and do those whose sun is moon, bat, badger, owl, know this night is runt of earths circle and this day their light day of the soul, their own solstice distorted, refracted of cousin daykins
ask do your nightkin feel time is coming as we shift back towards darkkins world, nights lengthening in blessed relief
have your calendars your calculations clocks tick ticking stones in ground to mark passage of sun across horizon mark this date with number and name so solstice is known by pixelated and inked reminder
ahhh but dearest with nothing but your self and each other would the primordial the deep the sanctified ancient ancients within you have stirred as faces turn upwards to this highest point?
ask does we have knowing that this moment is suns final glorious moment?
ask, our darlings, or does wekin landkin plantkin birdkin mammalkin reptilekin fishkin funguskin allkin simply feel this day as another day to dance with sun, to sense shifts of dark to light to dark, shifts from heat to relief, responding in kind, as every rotation brings
what do your bodies remember of solstice, sweetest loves?
Have you noticed or marked today’s Solstice, whether in the north or the south?
What do you feel pulling at you, from within or without, as the Earth reaches one of its two yearly tipping points?
How has the weather, land, plantlife and wildlife been where you are today?
What has your body remembered today?