Meditative Prose
Wednesday, 23 June 2010
The Wedding
Monday was our first wedding anniversary. To celebrate, we took a long walk — past the bomb factory, under the railroad bridge, and toward the lake. We were going to sit on our favorite grassy bank and catch the tail end of the sunset, when a skunk encouraged us to continue south. Before long, Sarah & I were near Oakledge Park and the Earth Clock, the very place where we exchanged vows a year ago.
As we crossed the footbridge, we heard the faint sounds of a flute and drum. Rounding the bend, we smelled frankincense & sage, and started to get nervous and excited at once. When the huge stones finally came into view, we saw a group of about fifteen people sitting in a circle, playing music and celebrating the longest day of the year.
Something about this scene made us both really happy. Maybe it was because this isn’t the type of thing we’re likely to see outside of Burlington, and we realized we’re leaving a very weird, very special place. That is certainly true. Mostly, though, I think we were just happy to see people taking the time to mark the turning of the seasons. Although humans have been celebrating these solar holidays for ten thousand years or more, it’s a rare thing to witness nowadays.
Having our wedding on the summer solstice was our first effort at reconnecting with the rhythms of nature, and a symbolic way of blessing our marriage with the prosperity, abundance, fertility, and magic that are associated with summertime. One year on, I think it worked! The magic is still potent.
