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Tomorrow, around 4.45am, the sun will rise on the longest day, heralding the summer solstice. And alarm-clock willing, I plan to be sat on a hillside somewhere in Hampshire to watch it myself.

It鈥檚 hard to say exactly why a day like this can matter - and some will think it mad to get up at the crack of dawn to sit on a hill or join the crowds at sites like Stonehenge.

But there is something about observing this particular moment in time, when the axial tilt of the Earth is most inclined towards the sun, that connects me (for one) with a pre-Christian past in a way that enriches the rhythms of my own life and faith today. Lovely though I personally find it to sit in a church, it can help to draw inspiration and meaning from beyond the four walls of what you鈥檝e grown used to. Especially when it鈥檚 outdoors!

And while our solstice celebrations here in the UK tend to focus around Stonehenge, right across northern Europe bonfires will be lit in many countries which still hold tight to a mid-summer tradition once meant to ward off evil spirits. And which probably helps people today in a different way - to connect perhaps with a more primal part of their humanity which doesn鈥檛 usually get a look-in in our cosseted modern life.

Certainly, our rhythms can be flattened out in a world in which you can buy June strawberries in any month of the year, any time you choose. And our rites and rituals, too: in an increasingly consumerist culture it鈥檚 hard to think of many ways in which we celebrate key passages of the year, or indeed of our lives, meaningfully or vividly.

So it really can help to do something practical and symbolic: to light a bonfire, or to make a pilgrimage, or to perform a little ceremony.

One thing I think Christianity does well, is baptism - and I鈥檒l personally never forget the day I was baptised as a young adult - because it鈥檚 not every day you鈥檙e submerged in water to symbolise a profound transition in your life!

But as our society detaches somewhat from formalised religion, there鈥檚 surely both a need and an opportunity to seek creative ways to find reconnection and rhythm again.

You could start by climbing a hill and watching a solstice sun-rise.

I鈥檒l be trying to reconnect as I go tomorrow spiritually but physically too with the gifts of light and life which the prologue to John鈥檚 Gospel expresses so poetically.

But one could simply use the solstice as a way of counting one鈥檚 blessings at this time of the greatest light, for example... Or indeed just for the sake of witnessing the timeless beauty of the sun rising, in itself. Whatever it is, and whether you choose to rise like the sun or not tomorrow, may you nevertheless enjoy its mid-summer warmth and light.

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