Summer Solstice 2010 - a reading (on YouTube)
It is winter in the Southern Hemisphere. The crescent moon tilts in the wrong direction, a shallow bowl whose water spills as moonlight across the plain at night.
Clans gather beneath an evening star, its golden torchlight guiding them through the long, dark journey back to summer. There are new shields and some long lost emblems interspersed with standards present from the beginning, sigils as immemorial as time. Totem animals adorn each tent, lions, elephants and eagles, pegasi and dragons, guiding spirits their people pray to through the night as they invoke the numen of their ancestors. They all celebrate in tribal colors, in dance as well as song.
The battle horns have sounded, drawing each clan's iconic warriors onto the field to engage in ritual combat. Their feet flash like lightning off a spear point, their footfalls echo like thunder across the plain. While their prophets murmur each name like a touchstone, the clans draw comfort from the repetition as the battle performs its rosary across the field. Veterans will fall as fresh, young warriors fill the gaps and are lifted onto the shoulders of their companions, paraded around the field.
While only one will lift their voice in victory, for a moment all the clans stand together, united beneath that distant star. Ubuntu: there can be no lauded victor without a host of the honorably defeated.
Slowly, the orange and blue, the furious reds, greens and golds will wash away into a savanna sunrise, the quadrennial danse macabre suspended for four more peaceful years. Until the battle horns sound again and recall those far-flung clans to another field half a world away to celebrate a summer festival beneath a winter's moon.
© 2010 Edward P. Morgan III
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ReplyDeleteNotes and asides:
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I am distracted as I write this. Ten days ago, my quadrennial summer adventure began. Yes, I'm talking about World Cup.
It started light, only two games. Next came a steady diet of three games a day over the next ten days. Tomorrow begins the days I've been in training for, a mad rush of four games a day for four days, two pair simultaneously. Then the throttle eases back to a couple games a day in the elimination rounds with rest days interspersed until the final. After which I will be Baker Acted into detox.
Thirty-one days, sixty-four games. And I don't plan to miss a goal. Some might say it's an addiction. For me, it is a dissociative distraction from reality.
Four years ago, I was also watching World Cup as well. Only then, I was watching from my mother's hospital room. That turned into a long summer with a tournament I couldn't really enjoy. During the intervening days and years, there has been sickness and recovery, stress and relaxation. New friends have entered my life even as old friends have forever departed. As with the cycle of the sun, summer lingers only at a cost of winter.
Each of the past ten days, I've been thankful to be enjoying this year's tournament from the comfort of my living room. While there is another storm brewing, I'm hoping it remains on the horizon, at least until July.
Whatever you celebrate on this summer solstice, take a moment to reflect and be thankful. You never know when the moon might tilt, and guide your journey far from home.