Summer Solstice

“This time, it’s going to be purple.”

“No, green, definitely.”

“Oh yeah, so just how do you know?”

“Remember last year…?”

“I remember every year since…”

“…since when, tell me!”

“Since my first solemony.”

“And how long’s that been, ay? And don’t you start telling me about how you knew the elders and their pagan foolishness…”

Amy took the old women’s chatter in, had heard it time and time again, just as if it belonged to summer solstice like the ceremony itself. But today was different, today she couldn’t move, couldn’t took her eyes of Sol, not for a second, as it descended onto the horizon. 

They were all gathered on the flank of a hill overlooking the badlands to the west. A few bushels of burned grass and behind that a cliff dropped off two dozen feet or so. It still was so hot. Sol almost touched the blurred line where the badlands met the sky, as if to torch the earth. Amy thought about Leah, her wild curly hair and the freckles on her sunburnt skin, more freckles than the night sky had stars. For nothing?

The old women fell silent as the priest held up his arms vertically. He hummed softly as his outstretched arms moved in semi-circles and came to rest along the sides of his body. The hum grew into a moan, like a young child’s who is trying to get its mother’s attention. Moaning louder he sank to his knees and lay flat on the ground, his arms stretched out again. He slowly kissed the earth beneath his face, so slow that no one in their group could miss it. No one except Amy whose eyes where still locked on the ball of fire moving ever closer to the line of separation, of decision. She thought of Mia, the fastest of runners, the fiercest of hunters. For nothing?

“Gaia.” The priest was kneeling again. “Gaia, you the mother, you the caring, you the knowing. The one who will defend us, who will safe us. Gaia, you stand up against Sol for us – and for nothing else in return but our love.”

“Love, our love”, the old women murmured and some of the hunters too.

“Love…”, said Amy absentmindedly just a heartbeat after all the others.

Suddenly her grandmother’s face was in her mind. Granny whom Sol had taken in one of these grim summer nights, when the air would neither cool down nor move even the slightest bit and when all their fanning and their bandages of wet cloths and their sips of precious water could not mitigate the relentless torment which was the sticky heat for granny’s old body. Amy saw her granny’s complexion shiny and white the moment her spirit had returned to Gaia. 

Then she heard granny’s voice from years before in her head. The old woman was still strong and rocking the little girl on her knees, telling her something that Amy didn’t understand and never would.

“Your name, that’s not just three letters, honey. It’s five, you know, five. A, I, M, double E. And the first E has the tiniest extravaganza sitting on top of it, an accent, because your name is French, you know? From the old world, dear, in more than one sense.”

Amy would glance at her grandmother’s wrinkled face and smile helplessly. And then, the old woman, as always, would add something that Amy could understand.

“Aimée, my dear, means beloved.”

The priest stood up and turned around to them. His long robe adorned with shards of glass which caught the rays that shone across the badlands almost horizontally now. As if he bathed in sollight, as if he glowed from the fading day’s brightness. Scary. But then, he was the priest. He knew. The others, their band of hardly four dozen hunter-gatherer-scavengers, they had to believe.

“This longest of days marks Gaia’s victory over Sol. May nights grow longer again, may days get cooler again. This will be her victory. – Gaia, almighty mother, you know the cycle and you find the balance, even…”

This was their clue word. The priest in his robe of sollight paused to look at them, one after the other until all of them held their right fists over the left side of their chests and started to pound, lightly at first but then harder and harder. Tam-tam-tam. Four dozen fists patting on their protective gear, scavenged from the elder’s leftovers. Some wore desert camouflage, some wore kevlar vests. They all wore light capes, tight sunglasses and wound up headscarves. Tam-tam-tam. The priest nodded with an expression of satisfaction.

“…even, as our elders in their pagan ways had ravaged her, blind to her cycles and the universal balance…”

That was their second clue. Collectively they spat. Small blots of saliva hit the dusty ground. The little bit of their faces that was visible in spite of their headscarves expressed disgust. 

“…those were the days when the elders called upon Sol to devour everything and everyone. They stole Gaia‘s strength, hidden deep down in her womb, and send it up into the heavens for Sol to fortify herself. The elders, they fed the essence of the earth to the fire in the sky. And contrary to this, how much less do we have to bring as an offering to Gaia today? And how kind she will reward us! – Gaia, almighty mother, we call upon you to give us a proper winter to fill our reservoirs. And next year, oh Gaia, in thy wisdom, spare us of summer’s worst cruelties. For we vow to follow your cycles.”

Amy felt the inside of her mouth dry and furred. She should have spat less, but that was not all to it. By now the little band of muttering, glancing people and their priest was moving ever closer to the edge of the cliff. Amy felt drawn into the direction of the setting ball of distant fire. 

A feeling of absurdity hit her. For an onlooker it must have seemed like her people cherished the sight of the solset, not wanting to miss a fraction of it, trying to prolong this longest of days by their intense staring. Yet, they loathed sol. Of course. And, if anything, they stared her down. For the feeling of agency in a celestial cycle? Or like children who stay still and hold their breath while a nagging pain finally subsides? – At none of the solemonies in the past years Amy had thought anything like this. But what if everything had been pointless all along?

She remembered Tara, the sturdy one who had always refused to leave camp before nightfall, wary even of the twilight, the best tracer she had ever hunted alongside. And those words of Tara’s rung in Amy‘s ears now: “If only it brings back balance.” – But how should that happen? And when? This day just marked another minimum in nighttime, minimum time to hunt, to move, to scavenge. And the solemony was testament to their sacrifices, their hope and their waiting. All for nothing?

“Oh, Gaia almighty, we shall now offer you our beloved.”

And just as Sol’s uppermost edge had disappeared, a subtle flash lit up the horizon. It was green, and the priest turned to Amy.