Summer Solstice Celebration 🌞

We loved seeing everyone at the lovely Summer Solstice Celebration!

It was an evening full of song, connection, and light. Huge thanks to Sam Tunkel, Angel Tener, and Star Tener for their contributions. 

Subscribe to our mailing list to learn about this and other events at https://bit.ly/3QusHZg.

“A Truly Human Intimacy With the Earth”

by Aliza Zollman, Waterspirit Intern

 Quoting Thomas Berry, Blair Nelsen began the ceremony with an appeal for “A truly human intimacy with the earth and with the entire natural world.” This was the lens through which I understood the evening: how does celebrating the solstice help us develop our relationship with the Earth? This Saturday’s Summer Solstice Celebration made me reflect on our inseparability from water. 

It is easy for me to forget, despite living fifteen minutes from the Pacific Ocean, about the waters external to us. It is even easier for me to forget about the waters inside. The meditation “Wondrous Water,” by Mary Francis Reis, read by Rachel Dawn Davis at the event, begins “Now, become conscious of the saliva in your mouth, the moisture on the palms of your hand, the wetness of your tears.” I can do a better job of developing a “truly human intimacy” with water by remembering that it is inside of me. 

 Writer and midwife Robina Khalid also turns to the ocean in her life in New York. (Coincidentally, it was not until I looked back at her essay that I realized it was about the summer solstice): 

Of course I knew, intellectually, that New York was New York because of its water, because of its proximity to the ocean, to its estuaries and rivers. Of course I knew, intellectually, that it was because of its harbors that I myself — a child of immigrants in a city of immigrants — even existed, understood the paradoxical reality that it was because these waterways had been violently colonized that my family could leave their also-colonized home to make one here. And yet, I could not stop myself from looking up in surprise every time a seagull flew overhead instead of a sparrow or robin or pigeon. I had never thought of myself, despite living 4 blocks from the tidal strait that was once one of the busiest channels in the world, as being someone who lived on an island. But I lived on an island. 

 … I made a resolution: my kids would know that water was part of their story. They would know we lived on an island. That summer, I would take them to the beach every week. (“The end of a season”)

 She acknowledges that water is the reason that she lives in New York, yet she feels disconnected from the water (literally) all around her in her daily life. This prompts her to commit to physically traveling to the ocean with her three children, despite the challenge. She did exactly what Scott asked us to in imploring, “Ocean awareness, ocean literacy, and ocean love should be an integral, and not secondary, aspect of our lives of faith.” 

To me, the story Khalid tells is one of integral ecology. This is a concept I’ve learned about since I became involved with Waterspirit, which invites us to think about ecology and humanity as inseparable. As the meditation continues, “...the rains nourish our soils, feed our rivers and flow through our plants, animals, and our own bodies.” 

 Near the end of the ceremony, Sam Tunkel played The Byrds’ Turn! Turn! Turn! The lyrics, from Kohelet (Ecclesiastes), describe a season for everything. The solstice reminds us that the seasons of our lives are inseparable from a larger natural cycle. As we move through the year, so too does water move through us.

The Sacred Debt of Every Drop

In this season of broad and widespread water scarcity, there is a push for massive water-intensive projects—from the threat of sprawling data centers and industrial pipelines. This is a direct threat to our collective survival. When we prioritize industries that consume millions of gallons daily while polluting the very aquifers we rely on, we are actively trading long-term sanctity for short-term gain. During a drought, every drop diverted for industrial purposes or lost to pipeline contamination is a gallon stolen from our ecosytems and communities.