Solstice

Running round from one meeting to another, updating computer events, replying to emails, taking teams calls, missing phone calls whilst running to catch a train somewhere or popping to a shop, driving off to supper, wondering what is for supper: every day seems to be filled with a never ending stream of tasks and plans.

It is therefore slightly ironic that yesterday, the summer solstice, was about standing still. The 21st of June is the longest day of the year for those of us in the northern hemisphere, bringing with it the most light to fill our souls. Depending on whether you are a cup half full sort or a cup half empty, it is either a celebration of long lazy summer days or a harbinger of the short days of winter. Whichever, even now, it is still a day that is filled with myths and traditions.

In sharp contrast to us, our ancestors were ruled by the natural progress of the seasons and stopped with respect to recognise this major event in their annual calendar. They were better at acknowledging their interdependence on the world around them – the changing seasons, the welcome summer rain, the sharp frosts, the veteran trees and the swaying young saplings, the ripening grains and the shy hare hiding in the long grass.

Not far from Highclere stands Stonehenge, one of the wonders of the world. We still don’t really know who built it or why although it has long been associated,  with Druids (oak knowers) and the worship of the seasons, the skies and particularly the summer solstice. Recently a new earlier part of the complex has been discovered.

Near the modern village of Bulford two large post pits in the ground 120 metres apart  have been excavated. Filled with chalk rubble rather than debris, they are surrounded by a jumble of smaller rubbish pits. The wooden posts have long since disintegrated but in 2950BC they would have lined up accurately with the midsummer sunrise and midwinter sunset. One of the pits, which it is thought might have been a “viewing station” for the solstice, contained a very rare disc-shaped knife that was deliberately placed there – possibly as a symbolic reference to the sun disc.

Today, experts wonder and write papers to discuss whether such places were a means of time keeping or whether they had a spiritual or religious function but, as a non- expert, perhaps such questions can be viewed rather more simply in that nature, the sun and the moon  have always helped us keep time just as they still do today. 

So many of the world’s buildings, from the extraordinary pyramids, to temples and colossal statues were built to try to provide a link from this world to another, either as a viewing platform or a guided route to follow. Humans never seem to stop searching for answers, even if today it is about setting off in a rocket to another world on which we really cannot live. Instead, Stonehenge with its circles, immense stones and antiquity can be rather grounding and its traditions require its followers to stop, stand still and simply wait for nature to take its course as the sun rises through the stones. 

There are few better places to be on a languid sunlit afternoon than England, the lawns well watered by the spring rains, parkland trees casting welcome dappled shadows and perhaps some scones and tea on standby. It must have been not so different several millennia ago and I do hope they had their own version of scones and jam.