Summer Solstice: DAY 3/3: The Turning
This is Day 3 of our Summer Solstice Solar Gate Reflections. If you missed the first first two posts, you can find them here: Time to Play! and Live & Love.
“Once the soul awakens, the search begins and you can never go back. From then on, you are inflamed with a special longing that will never again let you linger in the lowlands of complacency and partial fulfillment. The eternal makes you urgent. You are loath to let compromise or the threat of danger hold you back from striving toward the summit of fulfillment.”
- John O’Donohue
The urgency of the eternal compels us to savor the transient…I feel this more than ever at this peak time of year as the Sun appears to stands still in the bright sky, lingering for just a moment longer before giving way to the lengthening nights. We are now moving through the Solar Gate of the Summer Solstice, and as the Sun sets on this third day there is an opportunity to enjoy a sacred pause within the Great Turning.
Can you put the hustle on pause? Place your troubles and worries for the future aside for just a moment? Linger for a moment, and neither long for nor fear the next day or night?
For what if this moment was your last? Would you be satisfied with your present way of being with yourself and your loved ones? With your work and your passions? With the world you live in and the journey you’ve been on?
The philosopher, Seneca writes:
“No one will bring back the years; no one will restore you to yourself. Life will follow the path it began to take, and will neither reverse nor check its course. It will cause no commotion to remind you of its swiftness, but glide on quietly…Putting things off is the biggest waste of life: it snatches away each day as it comes, and denies us the present by promising the future. The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today…The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately.”
Yes. Live immediately. Live urgently. Live fully.
Today, make a beautiful plate of food, savor each bite, holding it in your mouth before chewing and swallowing with delight. Save a piece of your feast as an offering. Place a little plate out for the creatures of the night. Acknowledge everyone’s place at this grand feast of life - and don’t forget yourself! Reflect on how you truly are immersed in a flow of reciprocal generosity with the seasons, elements, plants, animals, humans and so forth.
We’re all in this together. And it’s up to each of us to live with and for each other.
And in this truth, may you find and know kindness of heart, strength of body, delight of spirit, inspiration of mind, and peace of soul.
Love,
Jennifer
P.S. Thank you so much for reading and being open to ritualizing your life and weaving the sacred into your days and nights. I'm always happy to hear from you. I'll write to you again around the next New Moon! Until then, may the radiance of this Summer Solstice Turning heal you and awaken in you the intense beauty, love and magic of LIFE.
