The Summer Solstice and Social Change

The 2020 summer solstice is Saturday, June 20 at 21:44 UTC. In the Northern Hemisphere, the summer solstice is the first day of summer and the longest day of the year. The summer solstice is a turning point when the days start to grow shorter. This occurs June 20, 21, or 22, varying from year to year, dependent upon the elliptical path of the Earth around our sun. Technically the summer solstice marks the instant at which the Earth's axis stops tilting toward the sun and starts going back the other way. Solstice means "standing-still-sun." At summer solstice, the sun journeys farthest north in its orbital path and for the next three days it rises and sets at virtually the same place on the horizon, appearing to stand still, and then it slowly returns south.

At the summer solstice, we begin a new cycle on the Medicine Wheel of Life, entering the South -- the home of summer, midday, youth, joy, trust, and growth. From the South rises the vital energy of renewal, regeneration, and growth. From the South we learn to plant seeds of good cause. We learn that our thoughts and actions create our reality. Whether we realize it or not, we are creating our reality all the time. Our reality is the perfect, exact mirror of our thoughts and what we consistently focus upon. Every thought, idea, or image in the mind has form and substance. Everything that we perceive began with a thought. The structure of our universe is thought, mind and consciousness. Consciousness determines the form of our experience. Consciousness is the "theater of perceptual awareness." It is the collective consciousness of humanity that shapes our physical and social reality.

Shapeshifting our Social World

Shapeshifting is about changing from one energetic state to another. Shapeshifting occurs on two different levels. The first level is personal, such as when an individual shifts their energy to match that of an animal or helping spirit. The purpose of personal shapeshifting is to take on the perspective of a helping spirit in order to see the world through their eyes and to build a mutually supportive relationship. The reason for building a relationship with a spirit helper is to acquire knowledge, wisdom, and a broader, deeper understanding of the world.

Social shapeshifting is when people collectively transform their organizations and communities. The purpose of social shapeshifting is to develop new thought and behavior patterns in order to change the social world. We can only change our social reality by changing the way we think -- by changing our beliefs, expectations and assumptions which keep us stuck in a narrow perspective. Since all energy follows thought, shapeshifting is one of the most effective means of transforming societies. We create ourselves by how we invest this energy. What we focus our attention on is what our world becomes. By utilizing the principles of shapeshifting, we can transform our existing world into an equitable, peaceful world where all our relations can thrive.

To bring about social change, we cannot fight who we are. We cannot beat the existing system; we have to build a better one instead. As American architect, systems theorist, and author R. Buckminster Fuller put it, "You never change things by fighting against the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the old model obsolete." We cannot change our political system by fighting it. We cannot change an oppressive government by voting for more progressive politicians. We cannot bring about the kind of social change we want by trying to tear down the parts of the old system that we do not like. We can only change the social structure by building a new model that is so desirable and so successful that people will clamor for it. From a shamanic perspective, we need to shapeshift a new world into being.