Bravery in the Restorative Fire

Author: Jordan Pearson

I find it amusing that the United States’ Presidential Election Day in early November was chosen to align with the end of the autumn harvest, since most voters in the early days of the nation were farmers. In the 1800s it may have been convenient, but in 2025, it seems sadistic. Sure! Let’s have a stressful, intensely emotional, country-wide event the results of which put lives and livelihoods at stake just as we plunge into the darkest part of the year. 

It wasn’t always like this. Election day used to be a festive occasion involving copious liquor and special Election Cake. In the early days of the United States, despite the many problems we recognize through our modern lens, I imagine election day must have represented a celebration of a revolutionary new democracy, for which people had fought and died in recent and living memory.

Today, elections seem to be the cause of collective and individual mental health struggles on all political sides. I hope to broadcast a gentle reminder that not every result will have an immediate impact on daily life. Elections of course have very real consequences, and a few exceptional things happen quickly and severely. But of those exceptional events, almost nothing is unchangeable. Daily life must go on, even for us modern folk with our washing machines and smartphones. As individuals, though we may experience various feelings, we are NOT fundamentally changed by an election, and we too must move forward. 

This brings us back to the march of the seasons, which also always moves forward. The winter that we walked through was long, cold, and isolating. I felt as if I existed on another plane. Some of my friends seemed as devastated as they were in 2016. Having predicted this election result for many previous months, I felt removed from the situation. How could others not have seen this coming as well? Why is everyone stuck in this death spiral when we already tried it years ago and it didn’t work? Why am I sort of doing okay despite knowing bad stuff is happening? Should I feel guilty about that?

As the spring approached we were pushed forward once again, and what the light has brought me is maybe not exactly inner growth (which is what I always hope for after enduring wintertime), but open eyes to a new perspective about the authentic and invincible self. This perspective had been percolating in my mind, subconsciously, since the previous summer. Now I am beginning to understand, and wish to share it. 

Summer is my favorite season, and even more so this season as it pulls us into the light following the absolute black hole that was this winter. All year I dream of the eternal sunny days, the gentle and relentless rhythm of the ocean, and the scent of ripening tomato vines. No matter how punishing and interminable the winter, I know that summer will always return.

At Litha, we celebrate the return and triumph of the sun. We have already celebrated the emergence from the dark, the imminence of spring, fertility, and the building of energetic potential at Imbolc, Ostara, and Beltane. Litha is the full manifestation of all of these, like a solar version of a full moon. 

In our celebration of Litha, we can harvest this fullness of light and heat. Allow the energy to illuminate and cleanse. Every year I feel the warmth and heat of that fiery sun on my skin, my eyes, my heart. It burns away the last remnants of winter’s wounds, the lessons of which may be necessary, but any lingering pain is no longer helpful.

This high level of intensity brings deep healing, but can also dissolve old protections, or things we thought we needed to survive. Things we may have dearly wished to keep! Sometimes, destruction is needed to allow the emergence of the way forward. It can feel uncomfortable as the cocoon breaks open. The sudden exposure can be overwhelming, and only later may we realize this growth was inevitable. 

At last year’s Litha, I allowed the sun’s energy to dissolve a few of my own old protections. In the ritual meditation, I found myself somewhere in the Sonoran desert, the place where I spent most of my teenage years. The desert is beautiful, stark, and full of life despite the unceasing sun. I sat there on the hot dusty ground, among the shrubs and lizards. If you have ever visited Phoenix in July, you will know the feeling of being on the edge of spontaneous combustion. But I knew that I could bear it and survive, having spent two summers working outside under that sun. 

At that time in my life, before the aforementioned election, I was struggling with a lot of internalized frustration. I did not yet know that was what it was. It felt like depression, hopelessness, and lack of motivation. I had recently been denied a promotion for which I thought I had worked hard to show my development, only for my supervisor to move the goalposts for my needed skills and tell me that I was too timid and shy. This feedback was somewhat fair, as I have been timid and shy my whole life. However I thought I had been improving on this, and I was devastated that apparently it still wasn’t enough. I did not know how to move forward from the wreckage of that conversation. How was I to function in any workplace if I made my best effort to grow and had nothing to show for it? How have I lived well over 30 years on this earth and still not “fixed” this part of myself?

This is what that beating Litha sun lit upon immediately. It burned through the melancholy and sadness quickly, revealing a rusty iron cage. It was almost triumphant, as if to say, “look what is hiding under here!” 

Inside the cage was anger, and its voice. A little shadow that tried and failed, once upon a time in childhood, but would not be ignored any longer. At this point, unbidden in the meditation, the goddess Sekhmet appeared as a lioness lounging beside me in the desert dust. I have had previous pathworking with her, but I had not specifically called her in this ritual. Inside the meditation, this seemed normal somehow. The Goddess said simply, “You don’t need that anymore.” 

And then the rusty cage was gone, dissolved by the sun. 

The immediate result was a realization that most of the time that I feel sad or hopeless for no good reason, it’s actually anger. Longer term, although the feeling of anger may be uncomfortable for me, unlike sadness, it has momentum, and I can do something with it. I can recognize when my boss gives me unhelpful feedback and not allow it to affect me so much. I can overcome fear and speak up when I get a new boss who might like me better. 

I had that promotion secured before Yule. 

In the big picture, having anger suddenly running free in my head was upsetting and unbalancing for several months. After a year’s time, this is still somewhat the case. Yet, looking back, Litha marked the beginning of my newfound rejection of things “just happening.” A new drive to take control of things that can be controlled. I have taken another step into being my authentic self.

My wish at Litha is that we all celebrate both the invincible sun and the invincible self. That we find bravery in the restorative fire, and allow the triumph of the light to illuminate the authentic self we all have been hiding. I have found that if I can lean on that authentic self, I can get through a lot of hard times with minimal scars, and I can see a way forward.