Summer is Made of the Memory of Summer
Today marks the summer solstice, and the final installment in Nina MacLaughlin’s four part series on the lengthening light.
Max Pechstein, Sonnenuntergeng an der see, 1921
New season. New you. We began in the sky, in the stardust, we moved wombward into the water, out into the earthly world, and we arrive, now, in fire. Happy first day of summer.
The solstice is a special day, irregular, when doors swing open that are otherwise closed, like on Halloween, like the winter solstice and the equinoxes. There are extra layers of possibility afoot. Open yourself, why not, ease yourself toward a more primal state of mind. A battle’s taking place. Twins wage war for rulership over the year. According to the ancient myths, the Oak King has been in power since the solstice in December. Now, after half a year at the helm, he’s sapped. Today, the summer solstice, when the sun reaches its highest point in the sky here in the northern hemisphere, the Holly King, the dark mischievous other half, beats his brother, and takes the throne for the darkening part of the year. He’ll rule through yule.
The wheel of the year goes. “The same reasoning would apply to the King of the Wood; he, too, had to be killed in order that the divine spirit, incarnate in him, might be transferred in its integrity to his successor.” Ritual death, a fertility fest, rebirth. Power rising, taking hold, falling, taking new form. “He must increase, but I must decrease,” says John the Baptist of Jesus, born six months, a year’s half-turn, before him. “You can never have a new thing without breaking an old,” says D.H. Lawrence. “The new thing is the death of the old.” What’s coming?
