And just like that, It’s been almost a year in Japan! This time last year I was swanning around sunny, spicy, smoke-filled London, a gin in one hand and phone firmly stored in the bottom of my tote bag for safety. Living that Tokyo life, the gin’s been replaced by my phone now I’m free from fear of pass-by-grabbers on bicycles.
Despite the constant sheen of sweat over my body and glasses, I will admit that I feel so much less greasy than I did in London. Which is a pity in some ways, as Charli XCX’s 'brat' would surely have been even more sonically fulfilling in a city full of ratty, messy, chaotic Brits. I don’t notice the chaos and dirt here - life is simple, clean, easy, controlled:
Slip, slap, slide
through summer’s glow.
Rainy season comes,
Rainy season goes,
Sunscreen on,
Pack away those clothes.
Then pull them out again
When it starts to snow.
That’s how things move
In Tokyo.
The sun’s almost unchanged appearance in Tokyo skies does a lot I think to reinforce Japan’s static predictability - I don’t think I realised how much of my life was changed by the sun’s schedule while I lived in the UK. The sometimes-depressing, sometimes Christmas cozy comfort of long nights, grey skies, yellow streetlights on slick tarmac. The soft pleasure of it slowly getting brighter and brighter the further we stretched into the year. Golden hour at 8pm in a field in Wales. Laughing with friends in the sun. All those ups and downs, yearned for in different ways, seem a million miles away here. Even though it's solstice season, the changeability of summertime feels barely a breath away from winter.
If I'm honest I miss it. Long days in the UK. There's something strangely charming about walking to the shops in British summertime, the smell of weed and stray cigarette butts baking the day away in the background.
I’m just living that life
London girl
Scrape the streets
Straightened curls
Midnight bus, the 69
Stops outside
What a time
What a life
What a rush
What a kind
Of Brat am I
To take this pain
And make it bright
Incandescent
My own shine
I glow and light
one up tonight
Down gins in tins
Give nans a fright
The girl I’m not
But for tonight
I’ll just pretend.
Call out for shots.
Laugh with my friends.
And pray this moment
Never ends.
Yeah… I’m definitely not made for Charli XCX’s life. But it’s fun to pretend, right?
Whilst living in luxurious, predictable ease, I still want to celebrate the summer solstice, or at least take a second to appreciate what it stands for in a human context. In the days before electric light, safety from the night was but a candle of hope, slowly dripping its way to a snuffing demise. Then, the solstice was a reason for joy and longer days spent with loved ones in the community. It was a time of fertility, a time of abundance. Many years ago villages would light huge bonfires, also known as ‘setting the watch’ to keep away evil spirits at a time when the veil between this world and the spirits' is thinnest. As sparks and smoke filled the buzzing air of late-hour summer haze, villagers would dance and make merry.
The Irish had a tradition during Lithia (the Celtic celebration of Midsummer). They thought that if you carried a stone thrice round the bonfire whilst whispering your desires, the stone would come to grant any wish once tossed into the flames. Lovers would also jump over small fires to declare their love to the world. The higher they could jump, the taller their crops would grow come harvest time. As the fire died down, its ashes were collected to ward off misfortune, preserving Lithia’s abundance and warmth throughout darkening days.
I love you like fire.
I leap into you and know
My life shall be warm.
In ancient Wales they celebrated Gathering Day rather than Lithia, so called because the day marked harvest time for tender young crops such as peas. Druids and medicinally-minded individuals would venture out into the wild on Gathering Day. It was believed that as the veil between worlds grew thin, otherworldly power would infuse herbs such as mugwort and vervain with a potency unmatched on any other day. As the evening drew in, ‘firewheels’ would be created and rolled down a hill into a river. Many believed that if the flames burnt out before touching any water, a good crop season was guaranteed.
And even as that potent energy slipped through the veil, so too it was believed did the fae. In certain villages in Ireland it was custom during Lithia to symbolically crown a king, transforming him into Hearn, a fantastical swaggering creature full of vigour and merriment. This figure appears in Shakespeare’s work as Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, spreading equal mirth and misery amongst humans. Finally, Welsh believers would give thanks on Gathering Day to the figure of Rhiannon, who represents fertility and abundance in folklore. I have written poems outside of this blog for performance in celebration of Rhiannon - she is probably one of my favourite characters from Welsh myth and stands as a wonderful example of a layered female character in mythological text. In the third branch of the Mabinogion, though, she finds love in the midst of suffering. I’m so glad she did, even if afterwards she was frozen in time in the midst of an overgrown forest whilst chasing down her idiot son. In the below poem, she celebrates a moment of silence in soft morning light:
Solace.
Sunshine rays split the shadows of my
Morning room
Chamber dark no more, my past
A needle pinprick
Spot of light
Against the crinkle of
a nightdress crease.
Amongst the wrinkles
And freckles
And speckles of
Gunshot-flings and passing fancies
You appeared on a night
So soft,
So old,
So -
I have hunted and been hunted
And gone gone hunting
And prayed
Been worshipped night after night after night
By those that saw me for my power and gold
And gilt and cared not a jot for what lay underneath
Even when we lay together he could not see it
Even when it stared him directly in the face
But you are a good man,
Kind man,
Strong man to carry the weight of your world
With the heads of yet more
And when you came
It was with the mind for conversation
Rather than laying itself.
And as time stands still
On this hill
Know I will
Be devoted from this moment on
Even in the moments you feel rooted to a ground
Unkind with thorns and pulled down to the earth’s core.
When you bury yourself in the cold and dank
Know I will come armed with sword and shield and tissues
To wipe the dirt from under your nails.
And even if you sink so far away from the sun
- the same one you brought to me tied up the neatest, brightest bow,
I will shovel my way down to the underworld and drag you out behind me.
Because one day I want you to look back and remember this single thing as inescapably undeniably true:
When the walls close in,
The world stops still,
When they look away,
Know I never will.
And if time moves on
Till the grove grows dark
I’ll find you, I’ll find you, I’ll find you
Of course, solstice celebrations have never been confined to the Celtic nations. Sunwheels have been reportedly used during Midsommar celebrations in nations linked with Norse mythology. Travelling further south, one can find records of Ancient Egyptians observing Midsummer as a celebration of reverence towards the Nile. In South America, paper boats carry flowers and handwritten prayers that are set on fire and set sail down local rivers.
Some Pagans become pilgrims too during this season. One famous location in Wales is a prehistoric tomb on Anglesey by the name of Bryn Celli Ddu, or ‘hill in the dark grove’’. The tomb is a mystery and a wonder even when compared to its English cousin Stonehenge. The opening of the tomb has been built to align exactly with the sunrise’s position during the summer solstice. For a precious 20 minutes, crepuscular rays beam their way into the chamber, illuminating that what was once dark and deathly, imbuing the air with dancing dust particles and the promise of new life. Inside this tomb, in the darkest, dampest bits of our land, I imagine the solstice illuminating a part of our past long forgotten - all the bits we’ve tried to forget:
Sunshot, Sunspot
Crepuscular ray
Gun shot
Down the barrel
Into the fray
I fray to dust
In dust I lay
And here I lie
In ancient lore
Before each annum’s
Sundrenched morn
I mourn the ones we lost before
Before the flood
Before the fleet
Back when a senedd
Was just a seat
And every knot was left untied
Before the land began to slide
And hanged our land's most precious prize.
They lie here too
And gather all,
the spots of dust
for as they fall
We catch them in our open mouths
Lips gaping wide,
Tongues sticking out
A child’s Christmas
In Summer’s shroud.
In comes the sun,
In comes the crowd
Inside their minds,
We dwell and dance
And take up time
A nation split
Before its prime
Now splits the day
Cuts down the night
Fore one long spell
We Live in Light.
Reader, enjoy the sweetest summer night,
All my stars, and all my life,
Char x
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