Reach for the Light, Then Do Something With It

Summer Solstice arrives

Luigi Carlo Filippo Russolo was an Italian Futurist painter, composer, builder of experimental musical instruments, and the author of the manifesto The Art of Noises. This is his vivid piece “Chioma” (Hair),

The Solstice has arrived! For those of us in the northern hemisphere, where I live and write, it’s the long-awaited Summer Solstice, the high holy day when we celebrate the longest day and the official start to the summer season. It’s also the culmination of the light’s growth, and in the way of things, the beginning of the growth of the dark. Jung’s word for this phenomenon was enantiodromia—a word that sounds as much like the movement of a spiral or a figure eight as any word could. Enantiodromia means the tendency of things in nature and psyche to transform into their opposite, usually by first following a path all the way to its extreme. The Solstices are such clear moments in our living experience of this extremeness in the outer world—and a reminder that balance between two opposites states is never about holding a static position, but about the dynamic movement between the two, which fuels all change, evolution, and, importantly this year, revolution.

In our inner worlds, we might be experiencing a similar kind of peak and its prediction of a shift. The season of spring, now ending, corresponds with the alchemical phase of citrinitas, the yellowing. In spring, in the deep pattern of down-in-up-out, we make our ascent upward out of the deep contraction and incubation of winter, out of the dark night of the soul and all the reflection that follows it. Japanese poet Mizuta Masahide has that perfect poem:

       Barn’s burnt down—
       now
       I can see the moon. 

That’s how I think of fall and winter—the barn burning downing, the total failure of an old structure (fall), followed by a time where greater vision, reflection, and insight are all possible, and the seed of regrowth is dreamt and incubated (winter). Then spring arrives, and we have to stop reflecting so much, or cultivating our visions only in our minds. We have to get back into our bodies and start knowing and acting. It doesn’t happen instantly—this year especially, that Venus retrograde and eclipses combination seemed to stretch the boundary between winter/death and spring/rebirth deep into April—but it does happen.

The new structure begins to grow; we have to grow up, or step up, or show up, or rise up. We get pushed to be up for something we aren’t sure we are up for. If it’s a substantial change and the beginning of a whole new phase, it can cause a serious crisis. The old identity is likely still shattering—change is a process. The ego will fight back, that part of us whose job it is to keep things safe and predictable and in control, all real change just imagined. Even if we are totally miserable, the ego will insist that it has not exhausted all attempts to “fix” things using the same old tools and patterns, or it will insist that whatever we are undertaking is too big a risk, that we aren’t ready. We have to stay on the path anyway. We have to commit to the unknown, surrendering to the higher power of Change. It’s hard and exhilarating. Often, the reward for our courage and tenacity is receiving flashes of big-picture insight—that longed-for clarity about what the next steps are in life to further this instinctual growth. Sometimes that clarity is still premature, and all we receive is the gift of knowing we need to continue, following the pulse of trust in our Self.

What comes next in this process is the alchemical rubedo, the reddening, the phase that corresponds with the season of summer, and the phase where we the transformation we have sought and brought to initial life must be fully embodied, enacted, and integrated if we want it to bear fruit. Not every conscious attempt at transformation works—not every growth cycle bears fruit. That’s ok. The path is nonlinear, and sometimes it takes many years and many cycles before we are strong enough, or have enough support, or good enough conditions to evolve in the way we long to and need to. Similarly, some cycles visit radical change upon us—without our consent and/or against our conscious desire—and those changes can be especially difficult to grow into and integrate. But no matter what, the task before us in the rubedo is to come out of what was possibly, until now, a contained, strictly internal or behind-the-scenes, even entirely private process, and take the risk of moving outward, expanding, and trying some new moves. We have to spread our strange, brand new wings and learn that we can fly.

The last bit of encouragement I want to give myself, and you, is this: the reminder that there is a massive gap between the idea and the execution of it. Most citrinitas phases end on a high point, and most rubedos begin with a humbling, or a tumbling down from the high heights of spring. We sort of go forth, emboldened by some clarity about the steps we need to take to live differently and more authentically and with greater heart and courage, to move a project forward; we ride that high wave for a bit, loving it; and then we inevitably discover it’s not going to be so easy. Life is full of conflict, dishes, bad nights of sleep, other beings with needs. The collective situation also stays heartbreaking and demanding, and it’s never felt more pressing to address it. The work of actually making things different, or making things happen, it’s hard, and there’s always a disappointing loss of fidelity from our original vision to the in-the-real-world product. But doing something with our inspiration and insight, acting on the world, that’s exactly what we are here to do. So let’s all make an agreement with ourselves and each other that if and when that moment comes, when we feel humbled and possibly a little crushed by limits and realities, that we will recognize it, welcome it, and even celebrate it a little. We will remember(!) that any difficulty and struggle are evidence that we are actually doing it. Things are happening for real! The experiment has left the dream lab and made it out into the world of limited, imperfect forms! Perfection is not interesting! Living and creating for real is very interesting!

And until then, let’s just be in the river of what’s happening now. Let’s honor this high holy day in some way that feels right. The Summer Solstice is a celebration of the light, and the Sun, and, astrologically, of the solar soul purpose we are here to nurture and grow. Here are some potential celebrations:

• Bask in a beam of sunlight.

• Make a big bright bonfire if you are in a place that’s safe and cool to do that, and feed it with anything you are celebrating and letting go of.

• Throw on almost any album by Sun Ra Arkestra and loosen up in your body, like all the way.

• Do a divination practice of your choosing — I like to go on a dream walk out in nature, where I choose a threshold to walk over, set an intention, and then I soon as I cross the threshold, I let experience everything as hyper-real, and as-if it were a dream about my life.

• Fancy up an altar.

• Hang out with your pet(s) while listening to The Honey Drippers’ Sea of Love, feel so grateful to be their guardian and have them in your life

• Do that thing that makes you lose track of time in a good way.

• Go somewhere where you can really “see” the sun setting.

• Make some art, or begin to make some art. Art is the most helpful aid to integration. It has you making artifacts—it’s how we make something a fact, how we make it an objective reality; an object. Even if the change you seek to deepen and embody does not seem to lend itself to an art project, consider what happens when you look at it like an art project. How much more fun and interesting does it get? Your life, after all, is a work of art. Or it is an entire body of such works, that will altogether leave a deep, you-shaped impression on the world.

Ok, that’s it my friends. Protection and blessings on everyone out there fighting the good fight, always. May our next season be a big one for our liberation. Let’s impress each other.