Summer Solstice

From my Summer Volume of Seasons of The Soul…

Summer Solstice

Excerpt From My Sermon on The Soul and The Solstice:

It is postulated by soul-centered therapists and clergy that when a person or a culture forgets about the sun and the seasons, they lose contact with the essentials of life- the more heart-centered, empathetic and nurturing ways that make our relationships more enjoyable and that promote a gratitude for life and a quality of love that is more sustainable.

A couple of provocative, maybe loaded questions:

Do you feel that our society has lost touch with these seasons and reasons? How can we best recover our souls? Maybe it is that need to recognize and affirm natural ways and cycles of revealed truth that is behind our church membership’s interest in recapturing many of the Native American celebrations, or the Wiccan and Celtic wisdom traditions, that clearly celebrate the seasons with reverence and delight???

Going a little deeper, we can see in the ancient mythical and symbolic literature which would include a study of the archetypes, Jungian approaches, and the study of astrological insights and definitions, we can arrive at a compelling need to look to the Sun and at the seasons as ways to unlock and redefine our inner being.

In The Upanishads, the ancient sacred texts of Hinduism, we are given a reply to the question the Brahman asks of Argon, one of the gods of light and life:

“[Who are you?

I am a season, and the child of the seasons. I am sprung from the womb of infinite space, the seed of the husband and the wife, I am the light of the year, the Self of all that is; and whatever you are, I am also. I am but a phase of the universal life, and a child of the manifest cycles… I am a spark of the Divine, evolved through the cycle of the twelve stages, and by my means, is all growth accomplished.]”

Moving to the consideration of the summer and winter solstices as the longest and shortest days, we are given the contrasting image and the complementary rotations or revolving resonance that represents the changing seasons of the soul. One definition of the cycles of the year and the seasons is this: A year, in the life of day and night, is the way the soul moves, manifests and matures itself. 

Some of the physical phenomena that can have mythopoetic and metaphysical correlations are these: The solstice points are the only time in the whole year that the Sun stays stationary or is perceived as standing still. This stationing can be seen as a time of concentrated self or soul energy that reinforces what you know about yourself, and can affirm the next steps in your path to more complete selfhood.

Second, the two solstice points act as complementary and supplementary mirrors of beginnings and endings. The solstice points act as the mirror that has two faces: The summer one is concave- a view that elongates the search for authenticity and true definitions, and the winter one has a convex face that widens and deepens introspection, assessment, discipline and inner peace. These points at the beginning of the summer and the winter complement one another by showing our psyches a part of our inner make-up. These two points give us a special time for expressing, and then for integrating what you know about yourself.

Lastly, the solstice points are an opportune and gracious times for the recapturing and the reconnecting of your personal and relational missing links; those parts of you that you had previously let go, or places in your life where you have felt lacking or that something is missing.

The solstice time period offers us the spiritual opportunity that gives us time and energy to reclaim and reconnect them. From these phenomena, we gain insights into our soul life. From these celestial cycles, we can explore and find a path to our inner work, our inner release.

As the seasons transpire, circling the Cosmos in their divinely ordered rounds, we who value renewal and the potentials for self and soul, are urged to align and attune ourselves to these cycles; We can adjust ourselves to accepting the fact that we are creatures who need to heed the flow of energy and life throughout all the signs and seasons, rhythm, and reasons.

A parting thought, from one of my recent research projects about connections and correlations between grace and time:

“[We live in a soul-centered universe, and all beings share in the blessed perpetual motion of the world within, and the world without. At the very center and circumference of life is the Anima Mundi, the World Soul represented symbolically by the Sun. This world soul beckons us to heed the rhythms of existence, drawing us into the ever-flowing constant relationship to all that is and all that could be. …” Thomas Moore

These cycles of time and awareness are ours to learn about and more fully comprehend; to translate and apply to the complex world of human understanding and behavior. By following the mythic path of The Sun that will reveal our inner and outer connections to a more seasonal, sensual, and soulful life, we can find more of the answers to how our restless, wandering souls can search and find our true selves.

Happy Solstice… and May the blessings of the long time Sun be with you!