{"id":1167,"date":"2009-06-21T14:31:00","date_gmt":"2009-06-21T14:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1167"},"modified":"2009-06-21T14:31:00","modified_gmt":"2009-06-21T14:31:00","slug":"a-sikh-at-the-solstice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1167","title":{"rendered":"A Sikh at the Solstice"},"content":{"rendered":"

Via Jason<\/a>, a funny account of a British Sikh at a Pagan solstice celebration<\/a>:<\/p>\n

There, surrounded by the verdant, wild beauty of the heath I felt connected with Nature herself. I lay on my back and stared at the sky that was preparing a slow welcome for twilight. I became acutely aware that I was sitting on a planet that spun on an axis and was orbited by a moon in a solar system that was part of a galaxy that itself was but a slither [sic. “sliver”?] of a wider universe. I felt small, I became insignificant. I knew my place in the cosmos and the cosmos knew its space around me. It was a deeply profound moment, broken only by a shrieking child running to his mother, frightened by the apparently dead, pink turbaned man in the Lincoln green dress.<\/em><\/p>\n

It is actually one of the best meditations on the festival that I have ever read, perhaps because it looks at our world as it is.<\/p>\n

Me, I’ll be watching the dogs and kayaks at FIBArk<\/a>. Happy Litha, everyone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Via Jason, a funny account of a British Sikh at a Pagan solstice celebration: There, surrounded by the verdant, wild beauty of the heath I felt connected with Nature herself. I lay on my back and stared at the sky that was preparing a slow welcome for twilight. I became acutely aware that I was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[87,5],"class_list":["post-1167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-litha","tag-paganism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-iP","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7629,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7629","url_meta":{"origin":1167,"position":0},"title":"On the Sidelines in the Solstice Wars","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 7, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Oh wait, it is Christmas that has (news media-generated) \"wars.\" How the winter solstice should be observed, however, has become the subject of almost rabbinical discussion on one of the Colorado Pagan listservs, again. There are always two core factions, the calendrical and the astronomical. The event at stake is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Colorado\"","block_context":{"text":"Colorado","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=colorado"},"img":{"alt_text":"Siberianwinterking","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Siberianwinterking-300x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":455,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=455","url_meta":{"origin":1167,"position":1},"title":"Celebrating the wrong solsticeIn Britain,\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 21, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Celebrating the wrong solsticeIn Britain, it's time for media coverage of the summer solstice mob at Stonehenge and elsewhere, but some archaeologists think that today's Pagans and friends are celebrating the wrong solstice.It's all in the pig bones, you see.The Telegraph newspaper editorializes,\"And so this multicultural nanny [English Heritage] appointed\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4793,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4793","url_meta":{"origin":1167,"position":2},"title":"Why the Solstice Sunrise is not the Latest","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 12, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"The winter solstice is the shortest day, so why is the sunset is already happening later then than it is occurring now? And why does the sunrise keep on getting later after December 21st? Blame the fact that the day is not a perfect 24 hours long.","rel":"","context":"In \"solstice\"","block_context":{"text":"solstice","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=solstice"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2784,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2784","url_meta":{"origin":1167,"position":3},"title":"Solstice Is Coming, But Summer is Here Now","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 19, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"An exchange on The Wild Hunt as to when the \"summer festival season\" properly began led a commenter to post this link in response to the statement that summer begins on June 21. I hear idiot television newspeople (but I repeat myself) saying that all the time at this point\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"festivals\"","block_context":{"text":"festivals","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=festivals"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5738,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5738","url_meta":{"origin":1167,"position":4},"title":"Celebrating a Slavic Solstice","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 24, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The website EnglishRussia displays photos of a group of Russians celebrating Kupalo, the summer solstice.","rel":"","context":"In \"Russia\"","block_context":{"text":"Russia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=russia"},"img":{"alt_text":"From EnglishRussia","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/kupalo2013001-11.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/kupalo2013001-11.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/kupalo2013001-11.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":7279,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7279","url_meta":{"origin":1167,"position":5},"title":"How They Celebrate the Summer Solstice","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 14, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"From 2012, a BBC piece on how Latvians celebrate the summer solstice: It is not a complicated festival. All you have to do is head out to the countryside, get a fire going, stay up all night waiting for the sun to come up and drink lots and lots of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Latvia\"","block_context":{"text":"Latvia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=latvia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1167\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}