In the summer when the weather’s nice, I’ll often take my weekday workday lunches outside.  There’s a set of wooden benches at a downtown pavilion near to where I work and I’ll typically pick out an empty one to sun upon while drinking “lunch” , i.e., a Diet Coke. 

Today, I precisely repeated this routine.   Supine and positioned facing the sun, I grew still, then consciously thoughtless, just letting the heat sink in.  That’s a sufficient metabolic description of my status, I suppose.  But what does this act call “sunning” really consist of at a subconscious psychological or psychical level?

Sunning, I suspect, is truly occult, in the sense that its more profound effects are hidden and unseen.  Whether one just innocuously lays on a rock to grab a simple ray or partakes in an elaborate ritualistic outlay tantamount to sun-worshipping, surrendering to sunlight may actually be the lightest and brightest occult activity humanly possible. 

So what is it that’s hidden, what’s unseen?  If one were to observe a girl topless and laying facedown on the beach sunning with just barely a thing called a thong on, one might come to the conclusion that the only things unseen are the other side of the cloth of that thong and her two breasts rubbing a towel into the sand. 

Ahem— that’s a —er— natural  outsider’s perspective.  But what really is transpiring in her psyche as the sun flares its intensity down upon her?  What transformation of the spirit visits?  What healing repairs occur by this intermediation of solar incandescence? 

I know what some of you are thinking: Sunning and the resultant tanning can lead to premature aging of the skin and even melanoma.  Well, as is the case with any mortal excess, damage is bound to inflow.  But I’m not talking melanin or Vitamin C or “nice, healthy glow”—no!  Rather, what it truly means to... “find your place in the Sun.”

O, this blog has no answers.  Did you think I had the answers? No answers from me today! 

Just an ancient Egyptian quote and some images:

“Thou dawnest beautifully upon the horizon of the sky O Living Aten that was the beginning of Life.”

A tablet from the early 9th century B.C. which depicts the  Babylonian sun-god Shamash seated on the right, holding emblems of his authority, a staff and ring, and the king with two attendants on the left. In the center, on an altar, is a large 4-point sun image, with additional small wavy rays between the points.

Behind Pope John Paul II, on the front of the altar of St. Peter's Basilica, you see a sunburst design nearly identical to the pagan sun-god symbol of Baal / Shamash.

Symbol of Babylonian sun-god Shamash

John Paul II, and the symbol of Baal / Shamash appearing on the front of his fishhead-shaped mitre.

Statue of “The Truth”  lovingly grasping the Sun, (by Gian Lorenzo Bernini) and decorating the tomb of Pope Alexander VII in St. Peter's in Rome.