Contemplative Inquiry

It is 21 June, the morning of the Summer Solstice where I live. I feel refreshed and enlivened by a morning walk that became a solar celebration. I went out at 6.45 am, just short of two hours after dawn, leaning in to the influence of the sun in the here and now  A time when the sun was high in the sky, but the temperature still a friendly kind of cool.

Neither I nor the camera could look straight into the sun. I observed and experienced the sun through indirect effects. This was a physical, naturalistic, rather than metaphysical connection with the solstice morning. I was an inside rather than outside observer and can show my own presence too through my shadow on the path. I was part of the morning, this dance of light and shade.

In some places I saw sharp distinctions of light and shade and in others subtle ones. In both cases I was aware of a nurturing power, that of the sun in this time and place. I know that the sun can be different  – either relentlessly fierce or seemingly absent. I felt blessed that I could experience an hour of gentle solar celebration on this solstice day.