Summer Solstice

[newcastle]

Anyone doing the sunrise thingy at Karnak, or elsewhere, tomorrow?

[LovelyLadyLux]

Obviously I'm not but I am definitely enjoying these long summer nights and early summer mornings.

Evenings I sit out on the back deck which overlooks a wetland marsh, watch the birds getting busy pre-dark and do enjoy all the activity of nature. Mornings I'm outside sipping my coffee, listening to the wind rustle the trees, birds flitting about, the ducks parading the babies. Definitely lovely times of day.

[Horus]

Purely by accident last year I found myself at Stonehenge during the Solstice, much older and not as spectacular as Karnack, but interesting that they both seem to celebrate the same event. At least you can be assured of seeing the sun come up at Karnack.

[newcastle]

Purely by accident last year I found myself at Stonehenge during the Solstice, .........

Yeah right

No need to be shy about admitting you're an ageing hippy Horus

[Horus]

OK, OK, I admit it, now where did I put that bong?

[newcastle]

Doesn't Who2 do the solstice thing up Thoth Hill?

Talking of the doctor.....he hasn't chipped in for a couple of days

[Horus]

He's probably dropped his laptop in his plunge pool taking a 'selfie'

[LovelyLadyLux]

I don't know if tomorrow being Solstice has anything to do with it but tomorrow is our first National Aboriginal Day here. Am going to it (and hopefully will get lots of really good photos too!)

(NEED a camera icon!)

[Hafiz]

In vehemently irreligious Australia our contribution to the current Solstice (shortest winter day for us - the opposite for most other, and Northern, posters) was 1300 naked swimmers in Tasmania's very chilly Tamar river.

It was nationally televised and swimmers came from interstate.

The river was very cold, the swimmers mostly male, so there was little to see on national TV that was 'newsworthy'. Or so I am told.

I realize that others, especially North Europeans and also Russians, like showing off their micro-merchandise in the cold of winter. In our case its become a Guinness issue that will likely draw tens of thousands in future years and probably end up a semi-organized orgy. Organized or not better than some sleepy hippy smoke-in at Stonehenge or having to listen to the bangings on of the 'hatted one' at Karnak.

An afterthought about 'sun-worship'.

There is no country on earth that so worships the sun, and its tan, than modern Australia but we whites seem to have no ceremony for the summer Solstice. Wonder why.

Oddly, white Australia ignoring the summer Solstice may not all that different to the traditional religion of this country.

The traditional Australian Aboriginal religions featured the sky but there was no clearly definable sun god or spirit and, I think, little in Aboriginal art that could be seen as a sun disc or the like. Their religion was very terrestrial and concerned with place. Unusual when compared with other old religions but Aboriginal religion is a very much more basic form of religion than practiced by the Egyptians or Druids.

Best to leave the above unresearched idea hanging rather than draw a theory which would attract the unwanted internet interest of all those deranged 'Egyptologists' who deal in crystals and UFO'S.

[LovelyLadyLux]

Very interesting Hafiz!

[LovelyLadyLux]

Sol derived from the Latin "sun" and Sistere - "to stand still" as on this day it appears we do "stand still" on earth.

BUT - does anything ever really 'stand still?' Or are we ever moving in a macro trajectory?