the sun-cycle, summarized.
from noon: the sun horses hold the sun aloft in noon-apex reverence, an instant of total praise in which all of love-presence is clear and brilliant.
the sun horses deposit the sun on the afternoon ship. the afternoon ship spirits sail with the sun towards the horizon. the snake appears and begins to coil the sun.
at sunset the snake has coiled the sun and it is extinguished.
the snake breaches the underworld and deposits the sun on the night ships.
a fish comes upon the night ships sailing and loves the sun with a tremendous, pure mother love. the fish and the night ships sail to the left, the direction of the sun at night.
at the blackest, bleakest point of night there is a fearful encounter with non-being: the ourodont.
the night ships and fish sail toward the upperworld, where the fish will take the sun alone to be re-ignited, at sunrise.
the fish deposits the sun on the morning ship, and is allowed to swim with it for awhile.
the fish is then consumed by a bird of prey.
the morning ships sail on, until the sun horses arrive to take the sun toward its apex.
the sun is enigmatically helpless - it is at all times ferried around the sky and through the underworld. it is in the sun’s nature to not be mobile. all of creation in some way sees to its transit, but particularly someone’s always in primary charge …
the snake takes the sun from the afternoon ship, which slows as it approaches the lake of the underworld. as the snake lifts the sun from the ship it begins to coil around the sun: the very moment of the sun’s disappearance is that point at which the snake has fully wrapped it. this is the only time the sun is hidden. the snake carries great trust and authority.
the snake’s dusk un-coiling takes place in the underworld just across the skin of the world. the night ships are there at the barrier, and receive the sun on the central night ship. no real communication from night ships back to morning ships or vice versa occurs at the boundary - only a (mostly) confused form of each world is visible from the other.
the night ships carry the sun-extinguished. somehow it is made even more infantile in its darkened mode. there are multiple night ships to assure the sun safe passage through the underworld, as well as pure protection-love: the fish.
the fish is the only helper that ever gets to really be alone with the sun. she swims out of sight of the night ships with the sun as she moves toward her sacred and lonely task at dawn. the morning ship awaits in the upperworld, but also yields the appropriate distance. the site of the sun’s ignition is a birthing-space.
the morning ship carries the sun past the momentous consuming of the fish by the bird of prey, and gets to see the coming of the sun horses in snorting gallop. the activity of the early day is well-represented, with lots of thronging and work-posturing on the ship.
the sun horses must rise the highest, and must hold the sun in the midst of the most fiery noon-expansion. they are extremely powerful and well-prepared.
the afternoon ship is mostly notable for its laid-back descent, in which a large portion of the ship’s spirits fall asleep and have a strange afternoon-dream. apparently there’s not much to worry about here.
here we have a way of relating to where we are taken as the sun travels, and where we take it.
surrender happens at each boundary crossing: at sunrise and sunset there are appropriate ceremonies for sanctifying the truth that all the day is gift. the day is unique in this way: the day, what occurs in the light, has the tendency to stick - we need to make sure we are seeing it for what it is, upon entering and leaving.
the morning surrender is the surrender of the future, of the day ahead, of things-yet-unseen. this is the acknowledgment that all ahead is gift, the laying-down of the always-limiting plans, the acceptance of the love-action that will happen at each moment through the day, the deep gratitude for being love-birthed into existence, the commitment to stay in adoration to that love-power in presence: the sun.
the fish leads the way in this, having love-birthed the sun in a lonely love-labor. she has given the gift of ignition to ignition itself, with no expectation or design. she gives that love at sunrise, and that is where our morning prayer connects us with her.
the evening surrender is the surrender of the past, of the day behind, of things-already-seen: the tasks undone or well-done, the demerits or the accolades, even the joy-ties of innocent attachment. in the sun’s coiling, we see evidence that all is finished anyway, no matter what feelings there are about it. from evening prayer: “your path was right, and our path was right”.
the snake is the carrier of this closing action. he knows the moment when things are finished, and is to be honored for it.
so through the day we have experienced much activity, in a world of light, a world with clarity. the night gives a whole different experience, connected to a different world.
we are more permeable to the underworld at night because the sun-presence is there, and it is at night that stories, night ceremony and dreams arise. these are all linked to mythic and “big” times. we experience time differently in the night-path of the sun: it slips more, without the sun’s visible track to refer to. the stars above, while not in the sun-cycle, are markers in mythic time and story-guides.
the night has a different texture, as a liquid, where time and creatures are fluid and mobile and swim past. we are linked to the passage of the night ships through the underworld. any number of things may swim up to meet us in dream.
each time responsibility for the sun is transferred, there are accompanying ceremonies. the sun is always under protection. this is extremely serious: at any point, if a participant were to forego their particular task to take the sun where it next needed to go, the sun would stall out, fall from the sky, not return in the morning, or undergo any number of catastrophes (for mustn’t there be something AFTER the sun if it is always being protected?) …
the spirits onboard the ships have ancient greeting and charge-taking songs to sing; the animals have their own powerful melodies in response and encouragement, and great glad-songs of having the sun in their care.
as the morning ship rises toward noon, the sun horses emerge in the sky, weird, mighty, free. they pull up to the ship, manes blazing, and the spirits begin their song of transfer, more than slightly intimidated. the horses take the sun, blasting various responses, and rise alone with the sun toward noon.
the horses are at the peak of their power as they descend from noon: the noon-glare has left their sweat-sheen dazzling. they have fulfilled their holy task at noon - they are an incendiary mass when the afternoon ship first glimpses them. equally cowed, the afternoon ship spirits call out their first verses of transfer. the horses are even more confident in this ceremony, taking the lead, until they have lain the sun down upon the ship (surprisingly gently). now the spirits take responsibility, and watch the sun horses retreat into the outer atmosphere.
the sunset ceremonies are unique in that the snake doesn’t really have much to sing. it is so coolly determined in its approach and coiling - so decidedly purpose-filled - that it doesn’t seem to even notice the ceremonial spirit-songs. the snake does have a song, but it sings it to the sun, so as to ease it into its extinguishing. as the snake takes the sun off the afternoon ship, and as it deposits it on the night ships, the spirits honor it and the sun with songs that seem to match its movements.
the only ceremony not involving a sun transfer takes place upon the fish’s arrival at the night ships. the night ship spirits, alone in the underworld with the sun, have been singing a song of summoning: they know they need the fish for their night journey. after their initial setting-out and descent with the sun, they have built into a near-frenzy of cry and signal-dance to call the fish. when the fish finally does slip blinking out of the shadows, she does so in such a simple-swimming way that it makes the spirits realize they don’t actually call the fish … she just comes.
and as she pulls up close to the night ship that carries the sun, they feel why she comes: the fish loves the sun as her child, as pure, direct and tender mother-love loves. her love sets the night aglow, and infuses all the spirits with a connection to that love in themselves, from her. a protection is cast upon the whole entourage just from the overflow of the fish’s leftover love, after the extinguished and fetal sun has received all it can possibly absorb.
it is in the aura of this bracing love-protection that the ceremony for the fish occurs. spurred on by the fish’s love-example, and prepared in death for this moment, the spirits who have special dedication to the fish move forward to present her with valuables that they have been buried with for this specific purpose. they present goods to her in groups, singing songs of thanksgiving and devotion. she responds, lady-like, with gratitude.
at the close of the night journey, the fish takes the sun from the night ships in another heartfelt ceremony. experiences in the depths of the underworld have united the group. this ceremony is enthusiastic, as the spirits know that the fish’s task at dawn requires energy and encouragement. the mothers and grandmothers in the group are particularly vocal.
the fish’s deposit of the newly-ignited sun on the morning ships is a simpler exchange. the songs are exuberant and filled with morning and child energy. the morning ship spirits have not made the night journey with the fish, but they are deeply grateful for her task at dawn. for a time the fish is allowed to sail with the morning ship.
you can’t blame some of us for not quite having a handle on where the sun’s path in the sky is. modern living exacts a hard toll.
for all our sun-diagrams, just picture yourself facing south. if you stood there all day, you’d see the sun rise to your left, in the east, and watch it reach its apex right above you in the south, then set to your right, in the west.
the circle in our graphs approximates the arc the sun makes as it moves across the daytime sky, and fills in the necessary half-arc (completing the circle) that the sun takes in the underworld to return to the east by morningtime.
make sense?
the sun, spectralized as the present, at the instant of the noon apex
afternoon ship roused from an important afternoon nap-dream
sun horses revealed as multi-dimensional at noon
a record from proto-orthodox times: an early representation of snake-descent, complete with ancient sun symbols
the snake is approaching, coiling, or otherwise posturing for the sun before performing its duty.
