It doesn’t need to be a big campfire, if that’s not where you’re at, this season. It can be just a few sticks. That’s fine. Solstice campfires take many forms.

Down to the beach, firewood in hand. To make a fire. To sing the shortest day of the year down, through the setting sun, down into the night.

Baskets full of wrapped-up dinner, rugs, mugs, lots of warm clothes. Clinking bags of drinks that were made months ago – in the autumn warmth and harvest, with this solstice evening in mind.

This is something that we ‘just do’, now. It is a marker of the year.

Fire stacked and lit as the sun goes down, behind the hills on the other side of the river.

The crackling of firelight – small at first – as we all unpack our various treats, spread out rugs, offer up a mug to whoever is keen to pour something into it.

Some contemplate a sunset swim, some poke pre-baked potatoes into the edges of the fire to re-heat.

Some folks just sit on a log, cupping a steaming mug of ginger tea, staring out over the river – considering the year that has been. And the black swans, flying low over the water, heading home.

Here we are, back again. At the turning of the year.

Erm, what actually IS the Solstice?

Fair enough to ask this, I think. Our current western culture doesn’t exactly centre festivals or celebrations that are defined by the actual Earth (and the Sun, in this case)… so. Time to step outside the Gregorian calendar, for a change. It’s good practice, for us all.

Every place on Earth gets 2 solstices per solar year – summer and winter solstice – because of the tilt of the Earth and how it moves around the sun.

Saturday June 21st marks the next solar solstice. If you’re in the Southern Hemisphere, this is the winter solstice – the shortest day and longest night of the solar year. The sun will rise at it’s most northern point in the sky, skim the northern horizon in it’s lowest arc of the year, and set in the west (or north-west, depending how south you are) in the mid-afternoon, beginning the longest night.

If you’re in the Northern Hemisphere, this same day is the summer solstice – the shortest night and the longest day, with the sun reaching its highest point in the sky for the year at midday. A carefully-tended campfire is still recommended, as are friends and delicious treats, but hopefully you’ll need less warm clothes!

In this season of love and rage, there is much work to do…

Give yourself permission to pause, though.

“The times are urgent, let us slow down” councils Bayo Akomolafe…

“… slowing down is not a function of privilege. It is a function of intimacy with a world that is agentially alive…“

Make your own rituals wherever you can. Sit with the seasons. Sit with each other, and yourself, and the sunset. An invitation to come together over simple celebrations, in a common space.

Evenings like a solstice campfire can be the best medicine there is. Washed down with warm tea, looking around the fire at the other shining faces, flickering in the light. Each thinking their own mid-winter thoughts.

Here, together, in between the everything of our current world.

You can also do this solstice ritual alone, if you like, to bring yourself back together, first. A party of one is an excellent beginning.

Once, many years ago, I made my own little solstice fire in a laneway in inner-city Sydney. It only burned for a moment or two – cardboard, and a few sticks of chipboard from a thrown-out something. But I lit that fire all the same, and I sat, as the light faded through the tangle of overhead railway wires.

And although I could not see the moon when I looked up that night, between the silos and the buildings, I knew it was there.

So I can confirm that this solstice practice can be done prettymuch anywhere. Even just for a moment or two – with care, and attention, and perhaps a little cardboard.

Marking the solstice is a bit like the practice of active hope. Just as active hope doesn’t require you to feel happy, or even especially hopeful, to begin to cultivate it, so too can this solstice observance. You can feel entirely rotten about the situation. As I did that time in the city. And yet.

Make the fire, sit with it a moment, and just be there. And there you are.

We mark the four quarters of the solar year, now, on this beach. Unless we’re setting a little fire on another beach, or forest, or down by the creek. Wherever works for the folks involved. Sometimes with two people. Sometimes with great crowds of folks.

Whatever the season brings is perfect.

I’ve often thought of these events as participating in an earth-bound constellation, of sorts.

All our little campfires, all those points of light, creating a twinkling of stars, when seen from above. Wider than a valley. Perhaps across a whole continent.

All softly marking the moment. Acknowledging the turning of the year. A simple, but powerful, way to be our selves, together – in this ecosystem, within this place, at this time on Earth.

So – that is the love part of this season.

The rage part may also be brought to the fire, or not:

We each are capable of many actions in a season, as well as sitting around a fire on solstice. We have room for many things, in our hearts. We can hold them all.

So here’s some suggestions for this month – to consider, support, learn, and do:

• Fire in the Belly – Tyson Yunkaporta’s latest piece for Emergence Mag.
• Crips for Esims for Gaza – a deeply simple and useful way to help.
• Dean Spade (author of the excellent book Mutual Aid) has a podcast now, about how we relate to each other – and the first conversation is with adrienne marie brown. It’s so great.
• Indigenous Knowledge: Australian Perspectives by: Marcia Langton, Aaron Corn, Samuel Curkpatrick – just heard Marcia speak at Bellingen recently. Now reading this.
• Woodside’s North West Shelf gas export project – word yourself up. There’s lots you can do.

The most important thing about a solstice fire is that you get your body there, to the place, to the fire, with enough warm clothes. That’s the central thing.

The food, though delicious and and a good companion, is secondary, and should be whatever you can manage, that day, this season. Home-made everything (while lovely) is not required. Heck I don’t care if you bring KFC. Or nothing at all. Just come. And sit. And be here with us.

Below are a few ‘here’s how we do it‘ suggestions for dependable, easy, cheap, portable and delicious campfire feasting. All tried and tested.

Firstly, a shoutout to the Upside down fire technique. It looks weird. But it works SO well. (Also known as the Minecraft Fire Technique, by some of the smaller folks we tend to sit with).

Campfire Solstice Times – a few recipes:

Fire notes:

Good fire stewardship is always essential. Choose a spot for your little fire that won’t impact the place around it in any negative way.

Bring your own wood. Flowers are always welcome, with whatever vegetal bits and pieces speak to the season, for you.

And no matter where you make this fire (even if it’s super remote)…. put the fire out when you leave. Like, completely. Go scoop up thermos’s of water from the bay, or the creek, or use the last of your soup if you have to, to completely douse the fire.

By observing good fire stewardship, you’re ensuring that no being is harmed by an unexpected hot patch on the ground (human, bandicoot, etc), and that no sneaky sparks or embers can take flight after you’re gone.

This act of care closes the space, shows respect for the place, and is an essential part of the whole.

Lastly…

If you don’t have the beans / spoons / energy for all this hoo-ha at solstice, sometimes that’s the way it is. Care and rest and strength to you.

But not every solstice fire needs to be big. Or even a fire.

A candle is very much a point of light. And a welcome addition to the earth-bound constellation, that we may all make this solstice season.

Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can. And remember – whatever you’ve got to offer is heaps. More than enough. So just work with that.

Good solstice, and warm toes, to you and yours x

A big thanks to all the lovely folks we’ve ever solstice-ed with, on beaches and riverbanks, in glades and loungerooms, and even high up on a rocky hill, once. To more of the same, please.

Extra thanks to Michelle Crawford for the pic of the toffee-apple making, and to Josie Harmor who first showed us that of course you can make toffee in the dark, on the dying embers of a fire! And also to Maria, who first brought the flowers to lay around the fire, years ago now. May we never be without them again.