Hope your voices are all warmed up now.
Welcome to the 2021 NYC Secular Solstice.
We made it here. This event came so close to not happening. And we’re at about half size. But we’re here.
We are gathered here as a community to mark the longest night of the year with a ritual that upholds our values.
Since it is the longest night of the year, there’s going to be a lot of darkness. Sure, we started silly. But I’ll warn you now, it isn’t staying that way. Most of you knew that. We are here to face the darkness, and to do it as a community.
I want to talk a little about that community part.
Some of you are very linked in. Your partners, your friends, your roommates, your favorite writers – all are here in this room or in rooms like this one in other cities. And some of you aren’t. For some of you, maybe this is your first meatspace rationalist event. For some of you, this might be your first contact with some of the ideas we’re touching on tonight. (If so, this isn’t going to be a very good introduction, being optimized for emotion rather than clarity. But you’ll have plenty of opportunity to research later, and I have confidence in you.)
I only want to gently nudge you towards thinking of yourself as one of us. Such things shouldn’t be rushed. Eventually you will know whether you are or not.
But I do want you to feel welcome. Even if you’re confused. We’re all confused, one way or another.
And I do want you to be a part of things tonight. Tonight isn’t about those of us on stage doing things to you or for you. It’s about everyone in this room doing things together.
So I ask you to take the rest of the evening seriously. When it’s silly, take the silliness seriously. If you disagree, disagree seriously.
And I ask you to sing along. At whatever volume you’re comfortable with – even if that’s a whisper.
And I ask you not to applaud. Applause is a custom from performances, not rituals. Also, you’re active participants, so you’d be applauding yourself. And that’s just gauche. There’ll be a chance to applaud individuals at the end when I thank people by name.
Now, those of you who have been to a bunch of these before, which I suspect is most of you, may have noticed that there’s one Monty Python reference I’m rather fond of which we left out. I left it out because I’m not sure it’s entirely true. And this is a night for truth.
This is our first really big gathering since 2020 and I have to ask: did we lose anyone?
I don’t mean did any of us as individuals lose people to 2020. I know we did – I know I did.
And I know – I can see – that there are lots of people who might plausibly have been here tonight but aren’t, because the announcement came too late or because this is still outside their risk budget or the precautions seemed too burdensome or they moved away from the city or wandered away from our community…
But is there anyone who might plausibly have been here tonight, except that they died between solstice 2019 and today? If you know of such a person, please speak their name when I turn to you…
If a name is spoken:
We will now have a moment of silence for ___
They are gone but not forgotten. The community remains. And in their honor, we proceed with solstice.
If not:
We made it.
By whatever combination of luck and wisdom, we made it. We, here, this community, is NOT DEAD YET!
So let’s keep singing.
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