An old English rhyme for the almost forgotten celebration of St Barnabas typifies the simplicity of the draw to the summer solstice.
Barnaby bright. Barnaby bright.
The longest day and the shortest night.
Words by Paul O’Connor
Film by Emily Badescu
It is a natural event that becomes more distinct the further north of the equator you live. It is also a time of celebration that extends back to antiquity and the very origins of human culture itself. So as summer reaches its peak a slew of events fills the skateboarding calendar. Local summer jams, contests, and organised hill bombs. This year the annual Go Skate Day falls on the Summer Solstice, the 21st of June. As pagans travel to Stonehenge to mark this event, skaters will flock to their own stone shrines in an alternative ludic ritual. Like in Emily Badescu’s video Sun Sacrifice, where through the birdhouse demo the Level Skatepark is transformed into a temple of concrete for the day. Devotees gather to witness the sacred ceremony of solar offerings. Our skate heroes Jaws and Shawn Hale are sacrificial warriors submitting their slams to the sun god who thrives off elaborate tricks that chance and provoke pain. Spectators demand ‘tre flips’ and ‘melons’. The more brutal the slam the more likely the sun god will be sated and bestow upon all another day of light, heat, and dry concrete. Carved transitions and flipped boards are animated as an inverted rain dance, grateful for arid moments however fleeting. It is always hoped that the days surrounding the solstice are dry. With clement to scorching weather and lingering evenings, the solstice is evocative of a time of year where skateboarders can relax. A skateboarding solstice promises respite from the spectre of rain, which animates the anxieties of so many skateboarders and steals from us so many hours of play.
In a modern secular world too-often stripped of meaning and significance, skateboarders have crafted their own calendrical rituals that at times mimic and trace pagan festivities. Skateboard events showcase serious play, where social conventions are relaxed and daring creative exploits become divine. In such instances we fashion new heroes, battling with their boards, bodies and concrete. We both partake in and witness dramatic feats, our own triumphs and tragedies are enacted with urethane spinning under our feet.
Transpose skateboarding’s communal gathering to those of ancient Aztecs seeking to appease their sun god and you will see your halcyon days anew. Your battle to ‘land bolts’, grind aluminium, and ‘fly out’ may well be trance-like offerings to the cosmic eye. Grazed knees and swellbows are our modern tributes to the cosmos. Each a reminder that in our brave grasping for the heights of the sun itself, we are mortal. Perhaps not with wax wings, but it is with waxed trucks gravity pulls us down; humbles us despite our labours. Our zeniths are brief, fleeting, likely ambered memories of a golden evening and a moment when we soared.
Perhaps distant relatives looking back on our age will see it as a renewed Neolithic era, forget the functional concrete blocks that make up housing and commerce. How might generations a millennia from now understand our smooth concrete parks with giant dips, curves and steps to nowhere? The perplexed might venture that these were esoteric ritual spaces where people gathered for debauched excesses of mead, raucous yells, and spontaneous physical contortions aloft wooden plinths. A carnival of bruised torsos, jarred heels, amidst a melange of scarcely divisible spectators and participants.
If you want to see a new Stonehenge, then travel to Prague and wake early in Stalin Plaza. The waxed granite and graffiti mix with the morning sun in an eerie way. Casting shortening shadows before the first pilgrims arrive. These stones are without doubt a ritual space, evocative with an austere history of a soviet despot. Now the playthings of a culture oriented in the most direct way to freedom, creativity, style and progression. Look at your own local spot, perhaps a waxed curb, a marble smooth park, or ‘creted’ DIY altar. Each one speaks to the sun as a goddess, knowing that her warmth gives it life and makes it functional.
One reason for the popularity of the summer solstice in various traditions relates to our bond with the land. Agriculturally, June signifies the busiest of all months. A flurry of activity, a bounty gathered in the harvest. Likewise, the summer is the busiest time for skateboarders, many of its youngest adherents released from cycles of study and examinations, and all grateful for the pleasant weather and longer evenings in the northern hemisphere. As urbanites the solstice is removed from the rhythms of the organic land and remade in the space of the city. Rituals renew.
Ralph Whitlock, a sage of British rural customs collected and documented all manner of outlandish solstice pursuits. From Cornish wrestling, bonfires in Devon, to dancing and flame leaping in Sunderland. Fires are particularly common, an earthly form of the most potent and foundational aspect of the ball of flame that gives us life. All of these solstice activities can be traced to various forms of ritual; from the quite obvious marking of seasonal and celestial events, to rites of passage, rites of affliction, feasts, and political pronouncements. Take a close look at your fellow skateboarders paying their dues to the sun god, perhaps you spot a trace of a Morris dancer as they bash their boards on the coping in celebration, or spy a witch crafting a sigil on her griptape, perhaps a tower of boards analogous to a Druid wickerman.
This year particularly, relish the summer and mark the turning year. After a bitter winter, a lockdown, and all manner of hardships that have accompanied the preceding months. Grasp your board, for it is a ritual item, and mark the skateboarding solstice.
Watch the full vid here.
Emily Badescu is a UK based, globally travelling documentary filmmaker and film editor. She first stepped on a skateboard in her early 20s at the Level Skate Park in Brighton and has been ungracefully slamming around the world ever since. Emily has a skate series ‘Grip Tapes’ currently in the making and is looking for like minded brands to collaborate with. Check that out and more of her work at: www.emilybadescu.com. You can follow her on instagram at @emilybadescu.mov
Paul O’Connor is a sociologist and lecturer at the University of Exeter, a lifelong skateboarder and author of the book Skateboarding and Religion.
