Solstice as a Turning Point

19 Jun Solstice as a Turning Point

There is a Jungian word I like to throw around that it seems no one has ever heard of: Enantiodromia.

What it basically means is that when something becomes extremely one-sided, it creates a counter movement. (Technical definition: the tendency of things to change into their opposites, especially as a supposed governing principle of natural cycles and of psychological development.) 

I wrote about this a few years ago when the women’s march coincided with Trump’s inauguration. Around the world women (and men) took to the streets in their pink pussy hats to protest a blatantly sexist leader who demeaned women and claimed it was fine to grab them in their privates.

Now over three years later, we are seeing Enantiodromia again. With white supremacy on the rise and a blatantly racist president in the White House, we’re witnessing the largest global Black Lives Matter protest that there’s ever been, and one that seems to be making sweeping changes in police reform and public awareness. Once again, collective power is springing out from under the boot of oppression.

In both cases, I hear people asking, “Will this make any difference?”

Protests have happened before and yet racism and sexism have continued. The Civil Rights movement began over 50 years ago, yet here we are again, still fighting heinous abuses and systemic racism. Will this be the time that does it? Or is that too much to hope for?

I remember the fight for Gays to marry, and how it came up again and again, only to be voted down. Here in California it was on again, off again, legalized, then repealed. A lot of couples married quickly, only to be told their rights were being denied. But the issue didn’t go away, and each time it came up it was discussed more. And then in June of 2015, it was finally legalized in all 50 states of the US.

I believe nothing is ever wasted in the attempt to move social justice forward. We keep pushing the dial, and every time we do, it does move forward – sometimes only a little, and sometimes a lot. There is no one time that does it for good and sometimes it slides back again, but usually not as far as before. Like the final snowflake that breaks the branch of the tree, only because of all the snowflakes that came before it, eventually change does happen.

The recent protests moved the dial a lot. Unfortunately, it will not end racism or injustice for good. It is too deep seated for that. But it may have reached a critical mass, where public opinion takes a monumental leap forward and the necessary changes come easier.

Saturday, June 20, is the Summer Solstice, the point at which the light is at its height, and the wheel of the year changes direction and heads back down. It is a pivot point from increasing light to increasing darkness.

In many archetypal traditions, the solar energy is seen as masculine, and light is seen as superior to dark, just as heaven is believed superior to earth. This view is burning our world, justifying domination and inequality, and contrary to the balance of nature.

Imbalances can’t last forever. Eventually the scales re-adjust. After all, light and dark have been cosmic partners since time began, with darkness as the senior partner that preceded light, just as our common ancestors emerged from Africa.

This Solstice we can celebrate the descent from “light supremacy” as a turn around from white supremacy. This is not to celebrate darkness as some kind of evil, but as the realm of rest and renewal, the fecundity of earth, the womb of rebirth, the depth of the soul, and the decline of racism.

After the archetypal Hero goes on his or her quest, the final step is to return home. In this time of pandemic, we are asked to return home, to the Earth. And when we do, we notice that nature is full of diversity, all parts working together as one in an infinite dance of cooperative balance.

Our very survival as a species asks that we do the same: Honor diversity and come into balance with each other and the Earth.

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