what is required to prepare?
This morning we stood (or slept or danced) on a planet hurtling through space, spinning and dancing around a star, on the longest (or shortest) day of the year. Some places on the Earth even had a “ring of fire” solar eclipse as well.
Has every day for the past 3 months felt like the longest to you?
Does it sometimes feel like everything is spinning, and everything is on fire? It does in my world: my work, my community, my nation, my circle of beloveds, everything I know.
Yesterday was Juneteenth, a holiday new to many people, especially white Americans. Perfectly timed, if you ask me, for solstice eve. Because here’s an intriguing thing about Juneteenth: it is not a celebration of a FACT (the law had freed people from slavery), it is a celebration of the complicated story of the DELAYED IMPLEMENTATION of that law. Because even if they were aware of their legal emancipation, over a quarter million people were still enslaved in Texas until June 19th 1865, and some still longer.
“Then, on June 19, 1865, Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger landed on Galveston Island with more than 2,000 Union troops. He stood at the Headquarters District of Texas in Galveston and read “General Order No. 3”: “The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.’”
How did over a quarter of a million people prepare for what was next? Were they better prepared because they were forced to wait for freedom? As soon as they could, most people went as fast as they could to find their brothers and sisters, their children and lovers and parents. First, to connect with the relative safety of family, and then to the work ahead.
Seth Godin refers to “the unevenly distributed tragedy of our times”: My mind and heart are so full of considering the ways in which we are, and are not, free to live out our destinies. Systemic racism, immigration morasses, incarceration, a flawed justice system, generational poverty, poor health, ignorance, hard luck all have gravitational pulls that can seem insurmountable, that can curtail our freedoms or our PERCEPTION of our freedoms. They can pull us to fear and avoidance and violence if we are unprepared for change.
But the solstice is fleeting, and above all, it is part of the trajectory that takes us to balance, to an even state. We can’t hurry it, and we can’t avoid it. We are always tipping towards and away from balance. The planets and stars do not change their patterns. WE must decide how we will ride them, how we will define the balance, and freedom.
So in a time of not-balance, what is required to prepare? How will we face uncertainty, injustice, broken dreams, unfulfilled promises? What work, or rest, or space for discernment is required of us now, while the days are long in the wilderness?
