There is a blissful irony that the dark half of the year begins at the solstice that herald’s summer’s zenith. We engage life at a frenetic pace as we take advantage of luxurious hot humid days and mellow warm nights. For many of us, summer marks a time to fill days with as many pleasurable activities as we can before our bodies start to notice the seasonal changes and the shorter days that indicate the approach of winter. We live outdoors with picnics, hikes, camping, and large family gatherings. We play in outdoor pools, cooling stations, lakes, and oceans. These times demonstrate one of our best human traits: resilience.
Normally, we think of recovery after a tragedy or blow of some sort, usually emotional or physical. This year, we can add to that the planetary blow of the most recent and ongoing pandemic. Regardless of vaccination status, we are in a state of recovery. We are materials that have absorbed the blow of energy, in this case, a rampant virus.
We had one of three outcomes: we released the energy by unloading the virus and survived, we sustained damage, or we were unable to release it, resulting in death.
Our individual and global mental health rise now in resilience: did we adapt our coping skills to absorb and then shoot off mental and emotional damage from the myriad of stressors affecting our mind and body during the recent and ongoing pandemic? Did we embrace our friends, make new ones, remember that our minds and psyche are just as fragile as our physical bodies? If we lost jobs, endured relationship breakups, survived virtual learning with our children, and re-worked holidays as remote gatherings without our relatives, did we survive mentally? Are we still plagued with feelings of anxiety in crowds or are we desperate to embrace everyone we meet due to prolonged isolation?
Just as there is no right answer as to how to navigate life, there are a zillion ways to define resilience within and for ourselves. With our various traditions, under the broad definition of nature-and-earth-based religions, we are used to the cycle of dormancy, creating, planting, nurturing our fertility, blooming, harvesting the abundance, honoring the balance, dying, and then back to dormancy. The names and number of rituals may differ widely, but we accept change.
Resilience is a hallmark of this ability to grow and endure inevitable change that is a part of life. The summer solstice marks a period of celebration, a hive of activity. As we begin the dark half of the year, our hectic pace is a sign of resilience: we have made it through the trials of winter and spring, emotionally and physically.
Juneteenth Flag. [Wikimedia Commons]
In the United States, our latest federal holiday, Juneteenth commemorates resilience for more than just Black people. The surface meaning is a historical fact, a proclamation that the last of the enslaved people were freed more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation; however, under the surface, its celebration since the 1865 Granger announcement became much more. In many towns across the United States, calling remembrance Jubilee Day or Freedom Day or Liberation Day or Emancipation Day promoted awareness of resilience. In short, how far have we come and how far do we have to go?
The colors are the same as the flag of the United States of America. This is not an accident. African-Americans never stopped being American. We share our struggles with many. Just as the Emancipation Proclamation and Declaration of Independence inspired many countries in their quest for freedom from colonizers, the struggles are not confined to just one group of people.
Frederick Douglass’ speech, “Oration”, which notes the pro-abolitionist nature of the United States Constitution, was given on July 5, 1852, almost ten years before Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of September 22, 1862. Just as the Emancipation Proclamation positively impacted the European acceptance of a still relatively young country, other events around the world summoned independence around the same time like the Russian emancipation (1861 and the British Slavery Abolition Act (1833)
The banishment of slavery has taken centuries in various parts of the world. Sadly, human trafficking and sex trafficking are types of slavery that still exist in many parts of the world including the United States.
Everyone has a journey with struggles. I view Juneteenth as a time to acknowledge not just the struggles from physical enslavement, but the stresses and restrictions that each person who has fought for freedom and independence faces.
We celebrate the resilience that sustains us through hard times, however, they may appear or have appeared in our lives.
Flag of the United States of America. [public domain]
The Fourth of July commemorates the Declaration of Independence for the United States. As individuals and as a country, there is no single definition of “American”, which is what makes Independence Day so special. Where and how are we celebrating our freedom this year? What blows have we sustained during the pandemic that are now in the past because we are in a state of recovery?
I am grateful for resilience from the angst of the past year. Like many, undesired confinement mentally, physically, and emotionally dealt a series of harsh blows. Humans need other humans for contact. Now that things are more open in various places, simple acts that I took for granted are now hallmarks of resiliency and freedom: gathering with a group of strangers in a pool for water exercise, going to an in-person concert, shopping in close quarters with others, and the ability to travel more freely.
While there is no flag-waving at each of these events, I celebrate the ability to resume these activities without fear or anxiety. I enjoy the lessening of stress from the inability to live in an open manner, as life was in 2019.
Resilience does not mean that we forget. I view the best parts of resilience include remembering the blows, the tragedy, and the stressors so that we can remember how to adapt in the future should they occur again.
Is it hard? Yes. Is it worth it? If we are alive and value the ability to live with all that comes with it, then yes. We are humans, filled with curiosity, and an innate desire to survive as a species. We spend years, perhaps nearly our entire lives, searching for some meaning of some sort.
Each rite of passage in life grants us additional freedoms: birth, infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, reproduction, old age, and death. Each stage is a battle with survivors entering the next stage with gifts and strengths that will enable continuation into the next phase of life. Within many cultures, a good death involves family, ritual, and acceptance of what lies beyond the border that defines life as we understand it.
Just as we bounce back from the various illnesses and blows while remaining alive on a biological level, the final celebration of life’s cessation in the form of death often is judged as being “good” or “bad” by those who see, but cannot feel as they are among the living. Like birth, death is a solo act. Exiting life on our own terms or as we desire are acts of resilience and freedom.
Fireworks [Pixabay]
The past year or so reinforced how we might not always be lucky enough to choose the exit from this human life due to pandemic constraints. This summer, freedom in its many forms also means the ability to honor the dead in our customary manner and for those who are dying to choose the manner in which they will leave.
In the end, for those who celebrate Independence Day and freedom in any form, the choice and ability to bounce back to a state that we desire is the ultimate sign of resilience. As a part of the dark half of the year, we can gaze internally to cheer our successes just as we lead busy lives outwardly. We can enjoy the still-long days of summer, as we relax with loved ones, and acknowledge with each deep breath that we have made it. Our resilience is the best celebration of life.
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