Midsummer: The House at Full Light

Today the sun stands still. For a few days either side of the solstice it rises and sets at almost the same point on the horizon, as if the year were holding its breath at the very top of a hill before the long walk down.

It is the longest day. The house is flooded with light from breakfast until well past supper. And I have noticed, over many summers, that a great many women find this the most uncomfortable time of the whole year.

The pressure of full light

We are told midsummer is joyful, and it can be. Elderflowers froth along every hedge. The evenings go on forever. Everyone is outside. But full light also shows everything. Every smear on the window. Every job left undone. Every way in which your summer is not quite the summer you think you ought to be having.

The archetypal energy of midsummer is expansive, outward, fiery. It is the energy of the Sun at its height, and it asks something of us: be seen, be out, be full. If you are in a quieter chapter of your life, that can feel like a demand you cannot meet.

Midsummer is not only the peak of the light. It is the moment the light begins to turn.

This is the thing that is so easily forgotten. From tomorrow, the days begin to shorten. The old festivals of midsummer knew this. They were celebrations, yes, but they were also a kind of honouring, a recognition that the height of anything is also the beginning of its ending.

Letting the house breathe

In the house, midsummer is a time for opening. Doors, windows, cupboards, curtains. Let the air move through the rooms that have been closed since spring. Let the light reach the corners that have been in shadow.

A few simple things I do around the solstice every year:

• Take down the heavy things. Winter throws, thick curtains, the wool rug by the bed. Wash them, air them in the sun, and put them away until autumn.
• Bring the hedgerow in. A jug of elderflower or meadowsweet on the kitchen table. Not arranged, just gathered. It will only last a day or two, which is rather the point.
• Clean one window properly. Just one. The one you look through most. You will be surprised what a difference it makes to see the world clearly.
• Eat outside. Even if it is only a slice of bread and some cheese on the doorstep. The house likes to be empty sometimes.

The shadow at noon

There is an old idea that at midsummer noon, when the sun is highest, your shadow is at its shortest. You can hardly see it. And yet it is still there, standing right beneath you, very close.

I find this a useful image for this time of year. When everything around you is bright, it is easy to pretend there is nothing you are carrying. But this is actually a very good moment to notice your shadow, precisely because it is small and close and not frightening. What have you been avoiding? What would you like to set down before the year turns towards the dark?

Write it on a slip of paper. If you have a fire, or a candle, let it burn. If not, simply put the paper in a drawer and close it. The gesture matters more than the method.

A midsummer evening practice

On the evening of the solstice, or any evening this week, stay up until the light has fully gone. It will be late. Sit somewhere you can see the sky, with a glass of something cold. Lenisa usually joins me for this and falls asleep before the first star comes out.

As the light fades, think back over the first half of the year. What have you grown? What has flowered? What did not take? Then think forward, gently, to the half that is coming, the harvest and the dark.

You do not need to make plans. Midsummer is not for planning. It is for noticing where you are, at the top of the hill, before you begin the walk down.

Enjoy the light while it is here. It is already, very slowly, on its way to becoming something else.