In the early 1970s, I landed back in San Francisco. For three years, me, my partner and her two children had been living a gypsy life, traveling from one collective household to another, from San Francisco to the Colorado Rockies, to western Massachusetts and finally, back to San Francisco. Read all about it in The Kitchen.
During all that meandering, we retained a few tribal rituals from the late ’60s.
One of those rituals revolved around the summer solstice and its many implications. To celebrate the awesome power of the sun on the longest day of the year, we few, we tribal few, would sit around the kitchen table with a cork, a needle, a burning candle, and a bottle of tequila.
Clutching a solstice token of our choice — a post, a ring, or a stud — we would sit in the throne (a liberated straight-back chair) and our brother in song, stage, and spiel would take a belt of tequila, pass it to the initiate who slugged a shot, passed the needle through the candle, placed the cork behind the ear lobe, and, with a wolfen growl, pierced the earlobe of the solstice celebrant, and inserted the post, ring, or stud through the newly pierced lobe.
Despite our meanderings, the tribe gathered each solstice to drink tequila and take another shot to the ear. Solstice by solstice, my array of posts, rings, and a gold hoop with the foot bone of a fox climbed up the gristle of my ear in a five-pierced arc.
Time passed. Year by year, the holes closed and my willingness to have the holes re-opened diminished. Finally, although the molten core of resistance, rebellion, and love continued to burn, the solstice days relaxed into a toast with a joint and a glass of wine. And that is the story of my piercings.
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Charles DegelmanWriter, editor, and educator based in Los Angeles. He's also played a lot of music. Degelman teaches writing at California State University, Los Angeles.
Degelman lives in the hills of Hollywood with his companion on the road of life, four cats, assorted dogs, and a coterie of communard brothers and sisters.
The joint and the wine sound a lot less painful, I’m with you Chas.
(But who is that handsome young dude in the photo?)
Yes, joints and wine go easier on the earlobe for sure. That picture was taken during that era, I think I was doing a music workshop for kids. I had a job with the San Francisco Arts Commission, doing public art. There were about 150 of us, actors, musicians, muralists. We got so much done, just having a salary. Started two theater companies, did workshops all over the place. It was amazing, to be regularly paid as an artist.
Bravo Chas!
I love that picture of you clutching your bass guitar. Too bad we can only see a couple of the piercings, because your beautiful hair covers the rest. What a terrific description of your summer solstice tribal ritual! Wish I had known you then!
thanks, Suzy. I appreciate your enthusiasm. It was a precious time, not always fun, not always easy, but we all felt the significance of observing the underlying reality of what it meant to have the days begin to lengthen. At times, those days felt as if every move we made had meaning. Perhaps they did. It would have been fun to know you then, too, just a coupla rebels who would have recognized the spark in each other’s lives.
Celebrating the solstice, however it is done, is a wonderful ritual. May the molten core continue to burn, accompanied by piercing or not. It was a time, and a good memory. In the meantime, kind of nice that the holes have healed up when not in use.
I loved your line, Khati, “may the molten core continue to burn.” Somewhere in there lies the vague, immeasurable non sense of alchemy and revolution. Spending the solstice resting for the next uprising, not just a rebellion, but the reshaping of the molten core of justice.
Charles, I don’t know how I missed this story, but I just read it and love it! The solstices -both summer and winter- have been sacred holidays for us. When I was younger, when my kids were little, we had an awesome summer solstice party outside with torches, champagne and a zillion treats I baked and danced up a storm. Neighbors once thought because of the citronella torches we were a cult- very odd in a lefty area of Boston. Later, we had to celebrate the Winter solstice, for its bringing an end to ridiculously dark days.