solstice :: kensington festival of lights

[sabotabby]

Since 1987, Red Pepper Spectacle Arts and other local groups have thrown a parade to celebrate Winter Solstice in Kensington Market. Everyone hangs out with paper lanterns and celebrates the coming of spring by -- you're not going to believe this -- dressing up in bizarre costumes and lighting things on fire. This year, I remembered to bring a camera.


This is not a furry convention. This is high culture.



There's also a Green Man beheading, but my pictures of it didn't turn out very well.





Fire eaters. On stilts, no less.


I like how this one came out.


Birds are creepy.


Especially owls.


The parade goes down Augusta Ave.


While there are many children in attendance, some will be having nightmares.




Along the way, there's dancing, theatre, and music on the rooftops, much of which honours the various cultural traditions that make up the city.


Outside Uprising.


The whole thing ends with a dance around the Fire Sculpture in Al Waxman Park. Which then, of course, gets lit on fire.

I like Solstice. Not the hippie neo-pagan shit, but the concept behind the holiday. This is the longest (and theoretically coldest) night of the year. The shortest day. The worst it gets. It can only get better. This goes well with the whole “this too shall pass” attitude I've been copping as of late.

I wrote a Christmas card to Mordechai Vanunu today. (I’m such a squealing fangirl. I didn’t end it with “P.S. Your brother is wicked hot”, at least.) The kick I get from doing something that I think might brighten someone’s day a little is almost exactly the same kick I get from doing something naughty or cruel. Go figure.