The Summer Solstice
On work, sleep and solitude
We have reached the summer solstice - in fact, it happened last night by my clock, although I do not worry about exactness. Right now, the sun is rising at its furthest north-easterly point, and setting far north-west. The days are all equally long, give or take a handful of seconds. That is outside the tolerance of my human perception. We have reached the still point in the centre of the year.
It seems almost impossible; the year has raced forward. I don’t feel quite ready for the high summer. There is surely more work to do. “The wheel of the year is rolling toward the longest day,” writes Nina MacLaughlin in Summer Solstice, “a breather, a pause. We’re midway between the planting and the harvest, and it’s time for the earth—soil, rain, and sun—to do its work. Can you take a rest? Can you aim yourself toward pleasure? Or are your work and life too intertwined?”
My life and work are far too intertwined, and they feel the effect of midsummer. The past few weeks have been a frenzy of work, a driven dance. I have pounded thousands of words onto the page, and thought that maybe they are even good ones, and I have made wild plans for the next year. Perhaps they are even possible. I always feel summer rising in me like this, a surge of potency and heat. It is a visitation, a wave I must ride.
On Friday, I broke like a storm, and raged at everyone and then slept all afternoon. Afterwards, I felt better. Sleep is hard to come by right now. The light does not go away for long. Here in Whitstable, and in the far south of England, the sun currently rises at 4.38am, setting at 9.15pm. But that does not account for the various twilights, the civil twilight which shows the sky lightening from 3.50am, and the nautical twilight - the darker, navy blue - which begins at 2.40am.The herring gulls start to call at about that point, when they sense the first hints of light.
And then there is the astronomical twilight, the time when the sky is still faintly illuminated barely visible to the naked eye. It occurs when the centre of the sun is 18 degrees below the horizon. My chart tells me that it lasts all night at the moment. The sky is never fully dark. There is too much light.
I have started wearing an eye mask. It is indigo silk, like sleep itself. I put it on each night when my curtains are still bright, and I sleep like midwinter. Eight hours, nine: my body is thirsty for it. If it falls off overnight, then all bets are off.
This morning, finding my mask on the floor, I padded downstairs at 4.45 and caught the stippled salmon sunrise. I have failed, this year, to celebrate in any more meaningful way than drinking tea in the early morning garden while the sky works its way through the colour wheel. The summer solstice is correctly termed the estival solstice, a name that irresistibly rhymes with festival. It is a high day, a time of song and dance, of perilously late nights. I’ve tried to persuade everyone I know to celebrate with me, to gather, to swim, to light a fire, to roll in the morning dew. But they are all busy, scattered to the winds; and nobody is interested anyway. We have lost our connection with the glorious peak of midsummer. We have lost the communal drive to mark it, to ride the surging year over the hill. We no longer have a pattern to follow, a set of rituals that must be followed. We have learned to look past the solstice towards the fierce heat of July, the slow, smoky month of August. It has faded from view.
But this moment matters, the time between planting and harvesting, the time when the year yearns to pause. I urge you to mark it, somehow, even in solitude. I urge you to find a way to feel the furnace blast of its energy, to encounter its abundance of light, to immerse yourself in its efflorescence, its explosion of fluttering colour. The year races on. Winter, as they say, is coming. We have a handful of days to feel this teetering of the year.
✷ My next UK live appearances:
Monday 15th July: Margate Book Shop with Dan Richards for his Climbing Days tour (no booking link yet but put it in your diary!).
✷ This month’s True Stories Book Club takes place on 25th June at 6pm UK, and it’s a bit unusual: a novel! I realise that’s a strange choice for a non-fiction book club, but I couldn’t resist making an exception for this one. Tom Newlands’ debut, Only Here, Only Now is a brilliantly-voiced coming-of-age story, told by a neurodivergent teenage girl in 1990s Scotland. I think you’re going to love it; I certainly did. Pre-order here. There’s a reading guide here.
If you think a friend or loved one would enjoy The Clearing by Katherine May, gift subscriptions are available here | Website | Buy: Enchantment UK /US | Buy: Wintering UK / US | Buy: The Electricity of Every Living Thing UK / US
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I always feel the fractiousness of midsummer. Up here in Edinburgh sunset is 22.04pm, and it just feels like a strange, parallel universe. My anxiety always ramps up, and I sleep fitfully, with unsettling dreams. But I too have felt a calling to ritual around the wheel of the year, since childhood, and I am flummoxed by the lack of awareness or engagement from others around me. I started the day very gratefully in circle with Kerrì nì Dochertaigh and others (an offering on her Substack) and it was the balm I needed. I closed the day with an evening walk alone through my neighbouring field, where I gathered grasses and some gorse, and tried to soothe myself over how quickly the last 6 months has gone! I think having a plan in advance, even a small one, can be helpful. But I've always dreamt of a gathering of women who dip into a glassy, smooth high tide, who share stories by the fire late into the light. One day! I hope you find some stillness and rest soon, and thanks for sharing this xx
Here in the southern hemisphere today is the winter solstice - 703am sunrise and 4.53pm sunset where I am. The colder days are ahead for us. I'm energised by the connection to you all experiencing the summer solstice, making the seasonal cycles vividly grounded. On and on we go.