I am writing this in the very middle of the year - the summer solstice. This evening it was still pretty light at 22.15 and this morning it was already light when I got up to visit the toilet at 03.45. There's hardly any proper darkness at this special time of year in northern England.
As I write Druids, new age travellers, pagans and romantics will be gathering at Stonehenge in Wiltshire to greet the sun as it rises above the heel stone. Thank heavens their peaceful presence is now tolerated - unlike the days of Margaret Thatcher when they found themselves confronted by police officers. They were not coal miners nor steel workers but they were treated as though they were.
As the solstice passes by, all too soon we will be back on the downward slope to wintertime. Days will shorten as nights lengthen. Summer days will give way to chilly autumn nights as deciduous leaves begin to fall from our trees.
And so time marches on and so we count the seasons of our lives passing by. This is how it ever was.. Upon this island off the coast of Europe, our ancestors venerated the sun and the passing of seasons countless centuries before Christianity appeared on the scene. A johnny-come-lately posse of connected religions that scorned and ousted those older belief systems. I find it impossible to forgive them.
Happy Solstice!
from Yorkshire Pudding https://ift.tt/igL3GYt