One advantage to living in the hills is that by taking different routes, you can pick the moment of observed solstice sunrise. I could sleep in until nine o’clock and still “drum up the sun” if I took the trail we call “the loop.”

But the dogs want, need, and demand their morning run, so we go “up the hill” on the Forest Service road, into a sunrise that is already happening.

At the top I take a little side trail to a suitable boulder, unzip the case, and take out the frame drum. It booms out over the valley, past the black trunks of ponderosa pines killed four years ago in the Mason Gulch fire, past resurgent Gambel oak, past living pines that the fire missed.

In the south, that is where the fire started when lightning struck. In the west, that is Holt Mountain guarding its maze of overgrown skid roads. In the north, a steep brushy slope surmounted by rimrock. In the east, a glare of light.

Uh-oh, what does Fisher have in his mouth? It’s the spare drumstick, and he is settling down to chew it. No! Come here! No serious damage, just dog slobber.

So much for drumming. The calendrical ritual is done. It is perhaps that calendar that unites us Pagans more than theology–to be doing something at these times.

Happy solstice to all!