A few weeks ago, one of my co-workers asked, what exactly do you do for the Summer Solstice? And while I had any number of answers for her, about typical Midsummer traditions and rituals, all of them boiled down to: enjoy your life and all the pleasures that life brings.
Turning to the Summer Solstice, feeling the power of the Sun and standing on an awakened Earth, when all that lives is busy photosynthesizing, eating, mating—the wonders and gifts of being embodied are so evident. There is joy in stretching our muscles, feeling the Sun on our skin, eating that first juicy peach, smelling cut grass and flowers. Summer Solstice is a moment to revel in all our senses, to take in all the sensations of the season. But this beauty and pleasure is not just for the Solstice Day itself, but permeates the whole Season. The magick of Summer is not bound up in the moment when the Earth is closest to the Sun, although that is a profound and magickal moment. Summer's magick is bound in passion and pleasure and experience.
Ahhh. Egypt, mysterious and wonderful. When we reached our hotel in the southern city of Abu Simbel early evening we discovered that the hotel had been double booked. All fifteen of us were stranded. At eight p.m. the lights went out and dinner was by candlelight. We drank tea and organic Egyptian wine as we sat in the lounge after dinner and waited. It was near midnight when rooms had finally been vacated! Who knows what happened, but we were happy they had happened and settled into our sparse but acceptable rooms for the night.
The next morning we were off early to see the sun rise over the colossal imposing 67 foot stone carved figures of Ramses II. My foot slipped on the walk and I was in pain. Along with almighty Ramses were the gods Ptah, Amun Ra and Re-Horakte. They lined a sandstone cavern temple. This site was sacred to the goddess Hathor before Ramses decided to build temples. Ever popular and charismatic, on one side of the cavern the statues of Ramses II showed him wearing the White Crown of Upper Egypt and on the south side statues Ramses II wore the Double Crown of Lower Egypt.The statues had been plucked from their original site by UNESCO and were now 200 feet higher on this taupe sandstone cliff.
I've been taking time daily, to connect with the spirits of my space, at work, home, the grocery store, the homes of others, and the commute connecting it all. It seems so silly. I've spent all these years focused on THIS totem, THAT guide, THIS space, sacred on/off, despite that intellectually I've known it's with me all the time. I am it. It is All.
What's the expression--the hell you know--to say nothing of the sacred.
Erin Lale
Fellow faculty at Harvard Divinity School posted an open letter to Wolpe in response to his article. It's available on this page, below the call for p...
Erin Lale
Here's another response. The Wild Hunt has a roundup of numerous responses on its site, but it carried this one as a separate article. It is an accoun...
Erin Lale
Here's another response. This one is by a scholar of paganism. It's unfortunately a Facebook post so this link goes to Facebook. She posted the text o...
Erin Lale
Here's another link to a pagan response to the Atlantic article. I would have included this one in my story too if I had seen it before I published it...
Janet Boyer
I love the idea of green burials! I first heard of Recompose right before it launched. I wish there were more here on the East Coast; that's how I'd l...