"Summer Solstice Is My Favorite Day"
My friend said this yesterday; and a few words about Stonehenge
When I worked at Highland Books it was located down Jailhouse Hill just across from Brevard College. Today, June 20, I’m thinking of how a co-worker and I shared the same indoor comfort zone. In warm weather, if we could, we propped the front door open in the morning, and then when air conditioning became inevitable we put on our sweaters.
Every June on the longest day we quietly celebrated the extra hours of daylight, storing it all up for when we’d need it on the shortest, darkest day in December.
I still email or call her to wish her a Happy Summer Solstice. And she has reminded me on Winter Solstice that the days are about to get longer!
Our urge to be present at Summer Solstice is at least as old as Stonehenge. I’ve never been to England to see it in its real-world setting, so this 4500-year-old structure has a mythical meaning for me.
British archaeologist Susan Greaney writes that in 2500 BC farmers, gardeners, builders and travelers looked to the skies for guidance. The longest and shortest days of the year must have heralded important changes for them, perhaps akin to predictions.
The word ‘solstice’ comes from the Latin words for sun (sol) and to stand (sistere). It’s the time of year when the position of the rising or the setting sun stands still in its movement along the horizon.
During the summer solstice, the earth’s axis is tilted at its closest point from the sun.
If you were standing at dawn in the center of Stonehenge at Summer Solstice, you would see the sun rise just to the left of an outlying Heel Stone, below.
Archaeological excavations have found a large stone hole to the left of the Heel Stone and it may have held a partner stone, the two stones framing the sunrise.
Stonehenge has been studied for so long, Greaney says, it holds no more secrets.
It’s only the why, which remains unknown. There are many other prehistoric sites across the British Isles about which there are far more questions.
I’m not likely to go see the famous stones near Amesbury. But it’s deeply satisfying that Summer Solstice comes each year to each of us, right where we are.
Look out your window at dawn this morning. Go outside wherever you are and notice where the sun rises, through the trees, over a cornfield, down the street, between skyscrapers or maybe on the horizon of the ocean.
Take your place in the eons. There’s still some mystery that we can count on.
Thanks Eda. Enjoyed THAT!
( Deda)
Been to Stonehenge twice, but not on Summer Solstice. It’s fascinating to think that while Africans were building the Pyramids, the “superior” Celts were rolling a bunch of big stones! David and I did drive from Helsinki up to Lapland (specifically Rovaniemi, Finland) to experience the Summer Solstice in the Arctic Circle.