The Long, Slow Arc of the Sun

ISSUE #158

My bedroom is a sundial, though I only realized it this week. Its design marks the sun's journey from solstice to solstice. Through a thin strip of glass at the foot of my bed, the December sun would fall on my forehead at dawn. Then it was gone, until one June morning it crawled through the garden window to kiss the left side of my neck.

There's a rule when speaking of the natural divine: avoid the word "god" for fear of misinterpretation. But I represent no coded religion—I merely respect our most powerful words. God means that which is perfectly liminal, immaculate space between giver and gift, the generous room that time’s made for me, every non-transactional breath I take.

Even trees have dozens of worship languages. The roots of each forest form a network so intricate they could be classified as organisms themselves. They enrich the soil without being asked, build an atmosphere from nothing for the sake of mere art.

I watch the sun set after 9 p.m. and I hear Sortilège at the end of Inherent Vice: "There is no avoiding time. The sea of time. The sea of memory and forgetfulness." A soul waiting for something is like inventing a word and then praying it finds the perfect translator. The days are long. The sun glides languid across the sky. It drags toward the duty of the next horizon.

But time exists only in the shapes we make of it. Patterns are revealed through acts of creation. We divert a stream by planting rocks, mark a snowy blanket by taking a step. We are makers of tools that map the divine, tracing shadows in chalk before they move. My room is a sundial: it follows the long, slow arc of god. These songs feel the same, organisms themselves.