Your very first Sneak Peek into Bond and Song đ
Image Credit: Woman Peeking Over A Book In Hand by Jacob Lund Photography from NounProject.com
and what the sunâs got to do with it
Read on forâŚ
- A peek inside Bond and Song
- Ruminations on the sun, the solstice, and the deification of the light
- Did I say a peek into the smack-bang-middle of Bond and Song?
{Every other Friday, my newsletter subscribers receive a personal love letter from yours truly, affectionately titled the Friday Mythical Mera Missive. Sometime later, some of the time, (some of) it goes live hereâfor love is best shared, and yet some love letters are writ to stay secretâŚ}
Darling,
Get yourself rooted and your jazz hands into squeal-ready position⌠Your first exclusive, you-saw-it-first peek inside Bond and Song awaits below!
Before we get into that though, letâs chat about the sun. Yes, really!
In the world of Bond and Song, the Dark is revered and honoured as much asâeven more thanâthe light. And still, it remains the Dark; full of mystery and unknowns (and a whole lot of exquisite and entrancing magic youâll want to discoverâŚbut I digress).
Thus, historically, humankind frequently associated the light with goodness and safety, with warmth and survival. Which is why, in cultures around the world, the sun was deified and worshipped, and many of these deities were imagined to, day after day, pull the sun across the sky with their great flaming chariot.
Think for instance of the Egyptian god Ra, depicted with a red sun disk above his falcon head, the Greek god Helios, the Japanese goddess Amaterasu, the Norse goddess SĂłl, the Celtic goddess Ăine, the Mesoamerican Huitzilopochtli⌠Young warriors of the Native American Plains tribes performed the intense Sun Danceâwhich was outlawed in the US until 1978 (!), in an attempt to suppress indigenous practices.
Well-known today in the West is the acknowledgement of the sun on the solstices (from the Latin solstitium, sun standing still), the longest and shortest days of the year. Many ancient people and nature traditions built henges and temples aligned to mark these days: The sun at its most potent, and the sun being reborn. (Intriguing tidbit: Itâs been posed that the birth of Christ was a re-conceptualisation of the rebirth of the light celebrated on the winter solstice in many ancient spiritualities.)
Often the sun was celebrated on the summer solstice which much rousing and romping, fire and drama. Itâs also said to be the time the enchanted otherworlds and fairy folk are closest. (Ring a bell? A p(l)ucky fairy, broiling emotion, midsummer? My old pal Shakespeareâs been there, done that!)
And yapâyou guessed itâsolstice is coming up before we connect again in two weeksâ time, just in case youâd like a heads-up so you can plan some rousing and romping with fires and flowers (and maybe fairies) of your own.
Aaaand as serendipity would have it, your very first sneak peek into Bond and Song takes place just around the same time that you read it! So strap in darling, because here we go. Just as the sun rises again and againâŚ
Late into the morning, obscuring the midday sun, the storm comes.
I unfetter myself, loosen my chains of politeness into the Queenâs Dance, and let the clawing, feral rage unfurl that has been simmering and roiling in my gut and my blood. With each whip of wind and hair, each drop of rain and sweat, each swing of hip and thunder, I let the rage slip out of me, seep through my pores, screech into the sand.
I become the Earth, and I bleed her wrath. I surrender to the Song, and I rage.
Funny, how by fully giving myself over to the all, I can at last feel and face my own emotion. Balanced on a swordâs edge only, oh yes, every moment just as likely to tip me into losing myself as knowing myself.
I cackle and yowl.
This is life. The life in which I am invincible, in which I am all. Who can destroy that? My darkness will always be deeper. And the life in which I hover like the butterfly in the wild kiss of the hurricane. Will it destroy me this second, or the next? For destroy me it will.
And yet, what choice do I have but to feel it all, live it all, rise again and again, the phoenix from ash? What choice would I ever want to make, but this wrenching, heart-aching glory?
Woooo! Darling, Iâm excited! Are you excited? đđ
Alright, composure, please. (Just kidding! Unbridled overflowing wild expression all the way!) Back to the blazing sun. (But oooh, are you ready for the Dark to seduce you?)
The nature-connected, sensual people whose world youâll dive into in Bond and Song, the Sung, do also have a celebratory calendar date in common with old nature traditionsâthough it is not the solstice!
The Sungâs exhilarating ritual for marking their highest celebration of the year plays a central role in the story⌠and youâll need to read the book to find out when it is and what itâs all about. đ
May you sing your soulâs song and may your heart bloom in love,
Your Word Weaver,
Mera Akiana
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