Monday 21 December 2009

21/12/09 - Winter Solstice Itinerary


Sunrise: 8.00am
Sunset: 3.54pm

Sunrise. Walk the boundaries of Parson's Wood and the old road. Be present. Listen to the stories being told by this ancient landscape. Rather than an effort to invoke the place, allow the place to evoke us.

Late morning. Walk across the iron bridge and out along the valley that lies between Little Trodgers and Pennybridge. Visit the site of a spring-fed well and the old College swimming pool.

After lunch, make water wheel.

Sunset. Back through the wood and out to the old furnace pond. Set our cardboard water wheel alight and float it through the tunnel. Fire marks the shortest day of the year - our hope that the sun will return. The wheel is a symbol of the turning of the year. Reversal. Rebirth.

Night of the solstice. Dinner and a private performance of the Sussex Mummers' play. In which St George slays the Turk - who is miraculously returned to life. Good cheer and carols.

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