Summer Solstice

The Cosmic Tree By Hildegard von Bingen

The first image that comes to mind when I hear “summer solstice” is one of druids, female priests mostly, sliding through darkening forests to host rituals of enthrallment and enchantment. Imagine: women as priests in ancient celebration of the communion of the body and bounty and promise of nature and the blood of life-giving fertility. Of all the myths and legends we’ve tacked onto Christianity, why couldn’t that ritual be one of them? Jesus as life-giver, nurturer, cultivator of hope for the world.

Summer solstice also makes me think of ancient stone circles and outcroppings, caves and dugouts, pyramids and huts arranged just so that on the day of the solstice the sunlight shines directly through, one side to the other, predictably, comfortingly, eternally. Men and women dragged and rolled and hoisted those stones, excavated the ground, tarried and toiled for years, for decades, to get everything just right so the reassurance could come again and again. Wait for it. Twice a year, wait for it. Ah, yes, the sun will stay its longest and then wane; the sun will stay its shortest and then wax. We can count on it.

This all, believe it or not, brings me to the Church. I think of all those years of those in power using those not in power to toil and build and attend and obey and wait for that very seductive reward: certainty. Stay with the men who know and proclaim and command and demand and you will have: certainty. You will know what to do and when and where to do it. You will know how to live your life. Just line up the stones, dig the hole just right, build the hut facing in exactly the right direction, and the light will come through. It may even shine directly on you.

I’m not advocating paganism in any sense, but, oh, in contrast, how much more dynamic the women (and men) in the natural setting of the ancient rituals seem. How vital. What room for movement and dance and growth and diversity. Add the sacred; add the sacramental view of the world; add the community and its great collective wisdom; add the divine and the Divine and you have a flowing and evolving and change-affirming form of certainty. A paradox, yes. A parable, maybe. A challenge for a new church in a new day, definitely.

Happy summer solstice!