A Deep River Year - 2017

Today is Midsummer Night, the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. It's the day when the sun reaches the northernmost point on the horizon before slowly moving southward again to its low place in the winter sky. I've always thought there should be another name for this day, since it is not really the middle of summer. That presumably would be in July, when this spot on our planet sometimes feels like a tropical place.


But this day in June has had an almost mystical place in the world's calendar for centuries. Around the cultures of the North, this day of the Solstice has been celebrated with bonfires and the blessing of waters, with customs and rituals that hoped to ensure that the sun would continue its life-giving presence for another cycle. Some of those customs still are observed. One Norwegian custom is for girls to put flowers under their pillows tonight with the promise that they will dream of their future husbands. In one Latvian town, the practice on Midsummer Night is to run naked through town at three in the morning, with beer for everyone at the end.


My celebration will be simpler, but perhaps no less joyful. I will go out in the back yard, or maybe in the field across the street, and wait for the stars to come out. I will hope to see a few bats flutter across the peach-colored dusk, and then the lightning bugs will begin to flicker in the treetops. It would be nice to catch a scent of the sweet peas in my garden as the world stills and the wind chimes ring softly in the evening breeze to celebrate the Solstice light. So what if this midpoint in the year means that we are moving toward the lean days of winter again! This is a day to savor, to feel, to hold close to the heart. Maybe to run naked at three in the morning.


Midsummer Night


We ride the Great Wheel of Time,
 spiralling through seasons and years
 around a golden star.
 And here, again, on the longest day
 when light lingers against the shadows
 we will fill ourselves with its flame,
 set a lantern glowing
 with sweet memories of celandine and clover,
 fireflies in the dusk
 and crickets singing love songs
 to the moon.
 On this shortest night
 it would be good to stand
 in a broad and grassy field,
 looking up at the glittering sky
 as we begin again the great journey
 toward our little winter.
 And this will be the benediction,
 that through every cold, dark passage--
 even to the edge of doom
 when this bright star is stilled
 and summers are no more--
 this memory, this hope, this fire
 of one summer night
 will endure
 as the bright and blessed glory
 of our moment
 in the vastness of all that was,
 and is, and ever will be.
--Timothy Haut