On Watching the Sunset Instead of the Sunrise
Very Belated Solstice Blessings (or sorry I'm late, I can't stop looking at my cat)
I’m gonna clear my head
I’m gonna drink that sun
I’m gonna love you good and strong
While our love is good and young
Get Out the Map, Indigo Girls
There was some debate about the Summer Solstice this year. The longest day was on the 20th June, so, suggested some people, this is obviously the day on which you should watch the sunrise. Others argued that the actual point of the Solstice was around sunset on the 20th, so you should watch the nearest sunrise to this, which would have been the next morning of the 21st.
My personal opinion is that there is no should about any of it. Intention is the thing. If you’re busy, tired, forgetful, you can honour any day you choose - wait until the weekend if you wish. I think most people in Glastonbury went for the covering-all-bases sort of sunrise watching, celebrating from Wednesday night through to the weekend. That’s what’s so beautiful about it all - the Pagan gods are not fussy. They will not banish us from the Mystical Isle for going our own way – or not really having a way.
We had all sorts of plans for the Solstice week (which also includes our wedding anniversary and my daughter’s birthday.) Plans involving annual leave and hikes, lunches, days out. These plans didn’t happen, for reasons I’ll write about later.
I had every intention, at least, of getting up early on the 20th to make my way to the top of Glastonbury Tor to witness the sunrise. Turns out I made it out of bed with just enough time to crawl into the garden and watch the small patch of changing sky above the jasmine. All the time my blackbird friend shouted at me for my inconsideration in not bringing mealworms to the party.
My night owl husband and daughter were planning to head up the Tor to see the sunset that evening, but what with me being a lark and up with the sunset, and usually barely able to keep my eyes open past dinner time, I had no intention of leaving the house at that time of night. And yet, there I was awake, albeit in my pyjamas, as they were about to leave, so I shouted Wait for me! and ran upstairs to get changed.
And sometimes those last minute, spur-of-the-moment decisions are the best sort of decisions. Words cannot describe the experience of climbing the ridge of the Tor with the sunset one side and the Moon the other. Streaks of red and orange and the burning disk of the sun disappearing behind my home town. We sat atop the Tor with a can of local cider each. There was a horse who had taken his man to the top of the Tor and was munching on the grass just outside the tower.
He does love the dancing, the drumming and the heartbeats, the man said. But sometimes it gets a bit much and he leads me out here for a bit of grass.
The man had barely finished his sentence before the horse was pulling him back towards the revelries near the tower.
Though there was drumming and dancing, the atmosphere was peaceful and contemplative as the colours remained in the sky long after the Sun had gone, and the Moon emerged stronger from those misty edges. Perched in a perfect liminal space, I couldn’t help asking the Sun and the Moon for the one thing I wanted most in life at that moment.
Which brings me to the reason the original plans didn’t happen. Our Sarah Jane, our beautiful, Fluffmonster and Boss Cat, had been rushed to the Langford Small Animal Hospital. It was touch-and-go for a while. There were complications, and she took longer to recover than expected. At the point of the Solstice sunset, she had been in hospital for a week - ill for a week and a half.
The next day was our 22nd wedding anniversary and we went to see our Sarah Jane in hospital. It turns out she had decided to pull out her feeding tube and start eating solid food again. As she strutted around the visiting room, the cat we saw that day was starting to resemble the cat she had been two very long weeks ago. It was if she had suddenly decided she was done with this sick cat business.
We’re so happy with her progress, said the vet. How do you feel about taking her home today?
How did we feel?
You’d better ask the Sun and Moon, if you really need to know.
