The summer solstice comes whether we want it to or not.Today is the longest day in the northern hemisphere although, as I write this the sun has not yet risen.It was a sleepless night, making this day seem even longer than it already is.Over on Horror Homeroom, where they understand sleepless nights, my piece on the movie Midsommar will appear.I won’t say here what I say there, or you might not go and read it.I will say that for a horror film Midsommar boldly sets itself in a sun-bathed atmosphere, making it all the more unsettling.To see more you’ll need to visit the Homeroom.
There are implications for the longest day.One of the most obvious is that from here on out days will be getting shorter.That’s the thing about anticipation—we crave the light when it’s in such short supply in December and January.This year of Covid, the spring blended into a long stretch of social distancing and isolation, even as the days were growing longer and the weather warmer.It was like some spokes were missing from the wheel of the year.Now that summer’s here many people are acting as if the need for caution is gone.Midsommar may help with that, since it shows that the daylight sometimes shows us what we don’t really wish to see.
Ancient peoples kept an eye on the seasonal changes long before they learned to write.Etched into the landscape markers like Stonehenge and Avebury and countless others were oriented toward celestial points on the solstices.Equinoxes were also observed, as well as the half-way points between.This altering of the earth to commemorate the progressing of the year took great effort, so we must assume it had great importance.You don’t move boulders unless you feel strongly compelled to do so.Such compulsion strikes us all as religious.
So it’s the longest day of the year.What will we do with it?When we look back at it, will we see what we wished we might have done with all that light on our side?Will we treat it just like any other day?The beauty of holidays (of which capitalism recognizes far too few) is that they teach us to stop and reflect for a few moments on the messages our planet sends us.Our longest day is also a message.What we do with that information is up to us.
