Notes on an Outdoor Solstice

[Maia]

Ray asked me to post some thoughts I had on a small outdoor Solstice I ran this year - specifically the experience of doing it outside - so here they are:

~~~

So the outdoors experience was... okay? It rained right before our event, so we ended up freaking out for a couple days about whether we'd have to move it inside - and then we didn't, but it was still a bit... damp. So that wasn't ideal.

The place where we had it was in a very small and dense copse that felt almost exactly like a *room* made of trees. People seemed to like that. It was a nice, cozy place.

After the Moment of Darkness - this was the reason we had it in this place - we went outside and looked at San Francisco lit up across the Bay. I think this could have been really powerful, except we kind of bungled it. For one thing, someone hit their head rather hard coming out of the copse of trees on a branch and had to leave. :-( And for another, we didn't have a lot of transition and talking about what we were seeing and why this was important (this was a problem throughout the ceremony, but especially at this part) so it seemed to lose its punch.

We also should have managed lighting better - that's much harder when you're outside. The performers (me and Anton) were constantly asking other people to hold an LED candle in front of our music. And after the Moment of Darkness we should have had a bunch more lighting, but instead it was just... still dark.

As for a larger event - I'm not sure. I think the general idea of using the sun itself as a lighting prop, timing the ceremony to sunset and twilight, is pretty good, and I think that seeing an actual lit-up city in the distance could be super good. But it would take much better logistics for that experience to really work like it should. And the problems we had with moving from one place to another would be way worse with a larger group. Plus the post-Moment of Darkness lighting is an issue that scales.

OTOH, there's also the option of completely scrapping the arc, like the Bay Area Solstice did this year! Interesting to see people experimenting with that.

[Raymond Arnold]

I definitely look forward to seeing (maybe participating?) in a version of this that's a little more polished.

I think it is possible to address logistical issues beforehand, maybe *start* outside the trees, have a brief intro where you talk matter of factly about being careful walking into and out of the grove, and then transition into "sacred space mode" walking silently into the trees. Then, when you walk back out, you've practiced doing that.

I'd be interested in exploring a version of this where you make the transition from "inside the trees" to "out looking at the bay" during the second verse of Endless Lights. (Maybe bring high powered flashlights/lasers to point up into the sky during the third chorus?)

For a small version of this event, consider having a requirement be that people try hard to actually have all the songs memorized beforehand (this actually could make for a reasonable way to make an event like this public without getting too huge, with a barrier-to-entry that is totally reasonable). If the songs are memorized then you don't need lighting.

ᐧ

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Rational Ritual" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rational-ritual+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.