your solstice sketches
Field Note no. 4 | light & dark
Last week I shared a note with some words about my solstice this year. It wasn’t what I planned it to be. Nothing much happened. It was perfect.
In the note, I asked whether anyone would like to share with me their own solstice moments, and I had such a lovely response that I thought I would share them with you here.
What struck me most, about my own experience, as well as all the beautiful shares, is that it was as much about awareness of the moment as about any great ritual or marking. It was about allowing what was before us be seen. Pausing, letting the moment soak in.
This year in particular I have also been struck by how this time is not all about the light. It is also about the shade. I’ve been thinking about how the longest day means we are also now moving towards the dark. How we cannot have one without the other. Both go hand in hand. Beautiful shares from the other side of the world, about the end of a life and about the clouds and the rain, really brought this home.
also spoke to this recently on a solstice call I listened back to on a woodland walk - she spoke of how it is the earth and the soil, and not the fire and the light, to which she is often drawn at this time of year.Below are some snapshots of this pivot-point from around the world.
Thank you
, , , , and for sharing them with me.From rural Co. Wicklow, Ireland, I wrote :
Yesterday morning I rose at 5:30am to go out for a run before the rest of the house rose. The sun glowed on the horizon as I passed the upstairs window. It was glorious. In the evening, I had planned to light a fire with the kids, mark the solstice in some notable way…but by 6:30pm after my early start and longest run I’d done in 15 years, I was so tired, I had run out of steam to conjure up any ceremony at all.
And then a rare moment opened up. My three children found a game with some putty they were playing together, quietly content in a way they all three rarely are at once. I took a new journal that had arrived in the post (Tolka) and a sheepskin rug and went out on our decking in the warm solstice sun. I read a few pages, and then let my eyes gently close as I drifted off.
In Chinese Medicine the height of summer is when there is no room for even one more leaf on the trees. Everything is full. Everything is complete. I had a brief sense of this delicious fullness, this content completion as I dozed in the sun, the dog asleep at my feet, my three children’s voices fading in and out on the breeze.
It was, in the end, the perfect solstice ritual.
From Failand on the outskirts of Bristol, UK, shared this sun sparked image and words:
My partner was briefly home yesterday between trips, having been in Sydney for ten days, and then off again on his annual meditation retreat. I was sad to see him go and to be alone again - apart from my two teens, a crazy dog and an old cat - and so I took Elsa for a walk, later than usual to a place where we rarely see people, and I stomped and chattered to her, and she romped and smiled, eating grass and zooming among the daisies.
I had been agitated and then felt enlivened, driving home with the windows open and the evening air blasting around my head. Both my children were out in the evening and both returned late, but just within the envelope of light.
From Eryi, north Wales
shared these beautiful pressed flowers and these tender words:
A family funeral might not have been the solstice celebration we wanted, but it was emotional and reflective. The end of a life, the turning of the wheel - strangely suited. Succumbing to these imperfect situations can bring tiny moments of magic ✨
It was raining when I got home and there was no hope of seeing the full moon, so I opened my flower press to find beautiful paper-thin memories I had almost forgotten from weeks ago. A fitting end to the day.
From New Zealand shared not the sun, but the moon and a message from the other side of year.
Full moon driving home in the Winter Solstice here in New Zealand ✨
From Donegal in the west of Ireland
shared news of sunset swims and bonfires.
I woke up, naturally, at dawn, and slipped out of the aptly named Mermaid holiday home in Donegal to take photos of the patchy sunrise. The day was spent exploring Arranmore Island in the rain. Light may have reached its peak but there was barely any of it on the wild Atlantic! Still, I went for a rainy solstice swim in a sheltered cove, and it was delicious.
But the ritual felt complete when, a few hours later, my eldest lit a fire on the nearby beach, and I went for a sunset swim, alone in the rolling waves of the outgoing tide. With my four acorns gathered around the flames, we roasted marshmallows, played, laughed. The wheel keeps turning but some things don't change, they only evolve.
From Tynemouth, UK
shared these joyful images of the perfect picnic and cloud-flurried sky.
and from Uzès in South of France
shared this rain and these butterflies:
We are in France visiting my parents and actually quite unbelievably it poured all day yesterday and my little ones have been quite intensely challenging…!
Having said that a moment in a wild corner of their garden seeing butterflies dancing on lavender and wildflowers felt like a gorgeous way to mark the fullness you speak of and the pause that the solstice asks us to take…xx
What about you?
Did the solstice find you?
I’d love to hear in the comments below.
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It's lovely seeing these solstice pics and taking a moment to remember mine, Layla. I was singing with my band for the final time before our gig and it was such a beautiful thing to be able to sing in harmony with other women that night
Beautiful post, great images, dried flowers—I loved that composition right away! Thank you for sharing! The Solstice day this year seemed unlike all the others. I was in nature, observing how the sun and the moon share the sky, I felt a special vitality; this energy released me and helped me to let go of old parts of myself that are no longer needed. Nature is such a great mentor and guide for how light, dark, shadows, and highlights perform their metaphorical part in our life.