We Live in a Circle: Summer Solstice 2019

We live in a circle.

Musings on the Summer Solstice 

The sun is telling real time, encouraging us to root down, look up & feel out.

The Summer Solstice is quintessential paradox:

simultaneously the effulgent height of light

(longest day of the year)

& the beginning of the dimming

(every day hereafter is progressively shorter)

that culminates in Winter Solstice—

(darkest night exhales completely)

which is a whole different story

(round & round we go…)

Attention to solar & lunar cycles can be a powerful means of caretaking our primordial awareness, our true nature—washing it fresh of all the ones & zeros, all the stories we tell, live within & re-tell.

Solstices, equinoxes, new & full moons are celestial moments which remind us of a wakefulness & spaciousness everpresent beneath our delimited human cycles of news, family & activist fatigue.

The Sun & Moon remind us to freshen up our courage & commitment to creative, compassionate participation in a dynamic, responsive universe.

May the burning blessings of our local star & benevolent mother earth illuminate this bright abundant season in the northern hemisphere.

May you be held by strong arms & bathed in soft light.


Text by Qayyum Johnson
Painting by Suiko Betsy McCall