As I write, today is the first day past the solstice—that moment of suspension, of the sun at its highest point in the northern hemisphere, surveying all that it touches in its moment of stasis.
On a visit to Furness Abbey (which I plan to write about) this summer, I read about the Medieval varied division of the day into hours according to the season while learning about the life of the monks there. Fascinating.
This is beautiful. There is so much I love about it. I often think that I am the only person that loves turning back to the dark -- and as I read in a space of exhaustion from all the light and life that has brought it was the perfect balm.
Thank you for a beautiful piece of writing. Having moved from my long-summer homeland of South Africa to the very rainy British Isles, I've often felt despondent at summer solstice time, because it seemed to threaten the end of what is already so short. Particularly this year, as we've had a distinctly un-sunny, cold summer here so far. Then I came across the concept you mentioned here:. "And so while I celebrated the solstice day, I confess I also celebrated because we can look forward to the shortening days, that the dark will slowly return to these skies" in the form of a local elder, Emma Orbach, who pioneered a community celebration and ritual for just this, 3 days after summer solstice. She feels it's part of rebalancing our society's over focus on productivity and worshipping the light... that for our brain hemispheres to be balanced, we need moon and starlight too. Slowly, I'm starting to see the turn of the year towards the darker half differently, though the dread of the long wet winter here in Wales still looms large. There is something so right about going to bed when it's dark.
Thank you so much--I'm so glad it spoke to you. That dread is so real as winter sets in, and living in the north, it definitely takes time to adjust to new rhythms, change the expectations, come to welcome what is when it can be otherwise elsewhere. But i do yearn for moon and starlight this time of year, and the comfort and quiet of a dark night returning. 💜
As always this was so beautiful to read. I think this is the first year where I have felt so affected by the changing seasons and light. I've realised, as the longer days grew, that I found myself with an abundance of energy that no longer dissipated in the afternoons with that disappearing winter light. It has been really wonderful to embrace that but only because it has also been beautiful to have so much lunar, introspective time. You're right to wish that rest upon the sun too and I know that I will be ready to soften into it again soon
thanks so much Daniela. The energy is a gift but it is a relief to find that the dark, moon, and stars will return to give some relief to all of that brightness. ;)
I love this and find myself agreeing. I don't live quite as far north, but I do live in a city with about 20 hours of daylight around the summer solstice and 7 or 8 around the winter. Over the years, I have come to prefer and look forward to the darkness. It is quiet, calmer, less demanding. It suits me more than the pressure to make the most of the summer light, to always be doing something great and building memories. I wouldn't have said this five years ago. I used to dread winter. Maybe it was the experiences of the pandemic that changed me.
Thank you for sharing your beautiful words. They always touch me.
I used to dread winter too, and now I can't imagine not having the cold and the dark be part of my life--something I never thought I could believe when I first moved to the north. It's the quiet, calm--and the stars and moon--that relieve that pressure, that it's not always about energy and doing, that there is value in being quiet and find beauty in the dark. And I agree--the pandemic may have indeed contributed to that shift.
We are sitting in the midst of mid winter mist and low cloud here in NZ and I feel such a sense of peace. Most people complain about this weather but I love it. It's a "surrender and relief."
I have experienced that "mid sommar" light when living in the North of Sweden. It always made me slightly giddy and confused. It is rather wonderous also though to be a part of it! xx
Thanks so much Jo--I was thinking of the southern hemisphere a bit as I wrote this, wondering about the switch when the months coded as spring are in fact winter. Love to think that the shadows and mist is keeping you company. The light is something for sure--there's a gift in it but that giddiness, confusion--it's real, that's a perfect description. 💜
Love this so much. Similarly rainy, foggy climates also invite the narrowing, quieting of perceptions, a welcoming balm for our nervous systems’ over-stimulus.
Yes I so relate to this Kimberly. I am sitting in that foggy misty time right now here in mid winter New Zealand. I love it and can feel my body completely relax. A balm indeed.
I love this so much! I always look forward to the shorter daylight that feels much more in tune with my body and mind. More natural. Almost like a small, bittersweet revolt against what's being asked of our bodies and minds under the system we live in.
P.S. Since you mentioned the Scots language, I wonder if you're familiar with the young Scottish poet Len Pennie? She's a brilliant, witty feminist author who's making a video with a "Scots word of the day" every day. She's @misspunnypennie on IG.
That's so right--there is a kind of bittersweet revolt against the demands of hustle and noise. And thank you for recommending Pennie--I haven't read her but knew a little of her instagram and it's a delight when I've caught it. 💜
What wonderful precision with which you wrote IN THE GRIMLINS. In no way a surprise of course. The idea of hibernating bears lingered like representatives of Great Spirit, which they are of course, nodding their heads in agreement. Your observations of the effects of nearly constant daylight, the energizing and near frenzied state that results, had my head nodding in agreement. My mother used to curse the Summer Solstice. “Now the days start getting shorter with winter close behind.” She had opted to be a full time homemaker when she married my dad. And seemed to work at something 19 hours per day. Gardening claimed large bites of time, but the shorter periods of daylight stymied her. Your essay rhetorically asks the reader how they view changing periods of light and dark as well as how they adapt as the Earth turns. Very grateful for your wisdom.
Yours is a very different experience than mine. It’s interesting to imagine living in your latitude. My first feeling about the changing days was as a high schooler with a part time job in a windowless county government microfilm office (no light allowed for the sensitive film), coming out at the end of the workday and it already being dark and feeling cheated of the daylight. Then later having the bonus of some daylight left to enjoy after work.
And I also remember the longer freer days of summer as a child. I remember hearing as a child that daylight savings time was done for us children to have daylight in the morning when we went to school and I thought what a waste, we don’t need that in the morning we’d rather enjoy more daylight in the hours after school. I’ve always hated that policy, the days are naturally getting shorter and we just clamp them down more.
We almost changed it recently which I felt was a sign of human evolution and then the legislation fell apart breaking many hearts.
Have you ever lived further South? It’s far less dramatic of a change, it’s basically shorter or longer evenings. Dark by 5:30 or by 9 pm.
I grew up in Portland, Oregon, so it's probably part of why it's always interesting to notice the light, the dark, and the swings of extremes here. And yes--the dark can feel oppressive when we are forced to work in hollow environments, to not see our family or pets in daylight for the winter months. It's why I feel so strongly that the ways we are forced to live and work separate from the lands and latitudes we live within is so fraught and stressful. I lived in Norway for a time and they have much more sane ways to deal with the darkness, mandating windows in all offices, etc. There are much more sane ways to experience and enjoy the sun's move round the earth. ;)
I know I’m kinda going against the sentiment of the piece, but I think it’s because I’m such an indoors person, I like having the option of going out into the light For people more outside I can imagine the respite of the cycle. And that would be especially true of developing countries where people are more outdoors. But either way your writing and how you inhabit the natural world is the best part.
On Shetland, they use the beautiful phrase “simmer dim” to describe the long twilight nights when it never gets completely dark
This is lovely, Freya, full of wisdom and beauty.
On a visit to Furness Abbey (which I plan to write about) this summer, I read about the Medieval varied division of the day into hours according to the season while learning about the life of the monks there. Fascinating.
This is beautiful. There is so much I love about it. I often think that I am the only person that loves turning back to the dark -- and as I read in a space of exhaustion from all the light and life that has brought it was the perfect balm.
thank you so much—and yours in praise of shadow solidarity. ;)
Thank you for a beautiful piece of writing. Having moved from my long-summer homeland of South Africa to the very rainy British Isles, I've often felt despondent at summer solstice time, because it seemed to threaten the end of what is already so short. Particularly this year, as we've had a distinctly un-sunny, cold summer here so far. Then I came across the concept you mentioned here:. "And so while I celebrated the solstice day, I confess I also celebrated because we can look forward to the shortening days, that the dark will slowly return to these skies" in the form of a local elder, Emma Orbach, who pioneered a community celebration and ritual for just this, 3 days after summer solstice. She feels it's part of rebalancing our society's over focus on productivity and worshipping the light... that for our brain hemispheres to be balanced, we need moon and starlight too. Slowly, I'm starting to see the turn of the year towards the darker half differently, though the dread of the long wet winter here in Wales still looms large. There is something so right about going to bed when it's dark.
Thank you so much--I'm so glad it spoke to you. That dread is so real as winter sets in, and living in the north, it definitely takes time to adjust to new rhythms, change the expectations, come to welcome what is when it can be otherwise elsewhere. But i do yearn for moon and starlight this time of year, and the comfort and quiet of a dark night returning. 💜
As always this was so beautiful to read. I think this is the first year where I have felt so affected by the changing seasons and light. I've realised, as the longer days grew, that I found myself with an abundance of energy that no longer dissipated in the afternoons with that disappearing winter light. It has been really wonderful to embrace that but only because it has also been beautiful to have so much lunar, introspective time. You're right to wish that rest upon the sun too and I know that I will be ready to soften into it again soon
thanks so much Daniela. The energy is a gift but it is a relief to find that the dark, moon, and stars will return to give some relief to all of that brightness. ;)
I love this and find myself agreeing. I don't live quite as far north, but I do live in a city with about 20 hours of daylight around the summer solstice and 7 or 8 around the winter. Over the years, I have come to prefer and look forward to the darkness. It is quiet, calmer, less demanding. It suits me more than the pressure to make the most of the summer light, to always be doing something great and building memories. I wouldn't have said this five years ago. I used to dread winter. Maybe it was the experiences of the pandemic that changed me.
Thank you for sharing your beautiful words. They always touch me.
I used to dread winter too, and now I can't imagine not having the cold and the dark be part of my life--something I never thought I could believe when I first moved to the north. It's the quiet, calm--and the stars and moon--that relieve that pressure, that it's not always about energy and doing, that there is value in being quiet and find beauty in the dark. And I agree--the pandemic may have indeed contributed to that shift.
I love this piece Freya.
We are sitting in the midst of mid winter mist and low cloud here in NZ and I feel such a sense of peace. Most people complain about this weather but I love it. It's a "surrender and relief."
I have experienced that "mid sommar" light when living in the North of Sweden. It always made me slightly giddy and confused. It is rather wonderous also though to be a part of it! xx
Thanks so much Jo--I was thinking of the southern hemisphere a bit as I wrote this, wondering about the switch when the months coded as spring are in fact winter. Love to think that the shadows and mist is keeping you company. The light is something for sure--there's a gift in it but that giddiness, confusion--it's real, that's a perfect description. 💜
Topsy turvy, but oddly compelling!
💜
The sun sets at 8;30pm here on the longest day, but I visited Iceland and Montreal where the days are long. What a gift.
It is a gift--and also begin to glare just a bit by the solstice, which makes me so grateful for some balance between. 💜
What a gorgeous read this is. I often feel sad when the days get shorter and this shifted my whole view.
Thanks so much Lane--I know, I used to feel that more and have really begun to welcome the darker days for that quality of rest and quiet.
Love this so much. Similarly rainy, foggy climates also invite the narrowing, quieting of perceptions, a welcoming balm for our nervous systems’ over-stimulus.
Yes! I grew up in Portland, and that rainy settling in for the day was something I always loved for that reason. 💜
Yes I so relate to this Kimberly. I am sitting in that foggy misty time right now here in mid winter New Zealand. I love it and can feel my body completely relax. A balm indeed.
I love this so much! I always look forward to the shorter daylight that feels much more in tune with my body and mind. More natural. Almost like a small, bittersweet revolt against what's being asked of our bodies and minds under the system we live in.
P.S. Since you mentioned the Scots language, I wonder if you're familiar with the young Scottish poet Len Pennie? She's a brilliant, witty feminist author who's making a video with a "Scots word of the day" every day. She's @misspunnypennie on IG.
That's so right--there is a kind of bittersweet revolt against the demands of hustle and noise. And thank you for recommending Pennie--I haven't read her but knew a little of her instagram and it's a delight when I've caught it. 💜
What wonderful precision with which you wrote IN THE GRIMLINS. In no way a surprise of course. The idea of hibernating bears lingered like representatives of Great Spirit, which they are of course, nodding their heads in agreement. Your observations of the effects of nearly constant daylight, the energizing and near frenzied state that results, had my head nodding in agreement. My mother used to curse the Summer Solstice. “Now the days start getting shorter with winter close behind.” She had opted to be a full time homemaker when she married my dad. And seemed to work at something 19 hours per day. Gardening claimed large bites of time, but the shorter periods of daylight stymied her. Your essay rhetorically asks the reader how they view changing periods of light and dark as well as how they adapt as the Earth turns. Very grateful for your wisdom.
Thank you so much Gary. 💜
What a beautifully strange existence having to endure such extremes!
They are always present--both something to honor and to try to adapt to, not always successfully, but still trying. ;)
Oh how I loved reading this ❤️
Thank you Anna, that means so much. 💜
Yours is a very different experience than mine. It’s interesting to imagine living in your latitude. My first feeling about the changing days was as a high schooler with a part time job in a windowless county government microfilm office (no light allowed for the sensitive film), coming out at the end of the workday and it already being dark and feeling cheated of the daylight. Then later having the bonus of some daylight left to enjoy after work.
And I also remember the longer freer days of summer as a child. I remember hearing as a child that daylight savings time was done for us children to have daylight in the morning when we went to school and I thought what a waste, we don’t need that in the morning we’d rather enjoy more daylight in the hours after school. I’ve always hated that policy, the days are naturally getting shorter and we just clamp them down more.
We almost changed it recently which I felt was a sign of human evolution and then the legislation fell apart breaking many hearts.
Have you ever lived further South? It’s far less dramatic of a change, it’s basically shorter or longer evenings. Dark by 5:30 or by 9 pm.
I grew up in Portland, Oregon, so it's probably part of why it's always interesting to notice the light, the dark, and the swings of extremes here. And yes--the dark can feel oppressive when we are forced to work in hollow environments, to not see our family or pets in daylight for the winter months. It's why I feel so strongly that the ways we are forced to live and work separate from the lands and latitudes we live within is so fraught and stressful. I lived in Norway for a time and they have much more sane ways to deal with the darkness, mandating windows in all offices, etc. There are much more sane ways to experience and enjoy the sun's move round the earth. ;)
I know I’m kinda going against the sentiment of the piece, but I think it’s because I’m such an indoors person, I like having the option of going out into the light For people more outside I can imagine the respite of the cycle. And that would be especially true of developing countries where people are more outdoors. But either way your writing and how you inhabit the natural world is the best part.