Roots in Solstice. The Longest Day Needs You
Yes. Our warm, wet, and lovely home planet is tilted weirdly on its axis – like a white-wine lightweight after an author’s luncheon, more or less. As it races around the local ball of fire at around 67,000 mph, Earth’s angular disposition in relation to the sun makes the days here longer, there shorter. Over four billion years of this, a planet thus charmingly titled will evolve a race of seasonally celebratory creatures who dance around maypoles, throw themselves at psychedelic parades, make ill-advised sartorial choices, and holler joyously to mark the lengthening days. You can’t make this stuff up.
Speaking of which, a certain flower-bedecked steamroller is headed our way. You know the one; that genteel, intensely home-grown hurricane of love called the Santa Barbara Summer Solstice Celebration®. The registered trademark symbol speaks not to the actual celestial phenomenon of Solstice – a seasonal change brought on by Earth’s aforementioned 23° axial tilt – but to a longstanding, beloved, and frankly ecstatic Santa Barbara tradition that is at this writing nearly 50 years old. Penny Little – whose name quite appropriately evokes the woodland folk tales of yore – is Solstice’s new Executive Director. Here she comes now with an emphatic message for the community she adores.
“Solstice needs volunteers! Help power the Parade! We need float pushers, water bearers, parade monitors, VIP hosts and hostesses, greeters, festival helpers, spotters. We need Solstice lovers to work our Beer & Wine Garden check-in and serving! We need Center of the Universe T-shirt sellers and greeters! We need help in the Creation Station for Kids! And it’s not too late to join an ensemble and be in the Parade!”
Emphatic, right? One wouldn’t want our Solstice Empress to be a shy retiring sort. No problem there. Little has been deeply involved with SB’s Solstice melee for over 15 years, long having taken on some of the more daunting duties. Her life-arc/CV also includes documentary filmmaker, singer-songwriter, and event organizer extraordinaire; restlessly right-brained seems an apt description. “The parade’s start will feature Chumash establishing the roots of culture in native lands here,” she says, her words flying on wings of caffeine. “That will be followed by the Children are Our Future float, and then (local terpsichorean typhoon) La Boheme will do a special introductory dance to truly kick off the parade, with John Palminteri announcing…”
As we approach Santa Barbara’s annual celebration, which falls somewhere between scarcely-controlled bacchanal and child’s face-painting exercise, Little is determined to get back to Solstice baseline. She could use our help. “We still have a general call for artists and artisans. And this year is going to be three days instead of two!” This year’s Friday-through-Sunday affair will take place June 23, 4-9 pm; Saturday, June 24, 12-8 pm [Parade Day, pal]; and Sunday, noon to 6 pm. These politely-stated time frames needn’t constrict one’s individual celebratory mojo, so to speak. You can’t entirely ‘schedule’ a celebration, after all. And beyond the joys of celebration, Little is intent on broadening both Solstice’s cultural gumbo and playful sense of caprice. “I want to bring awareness to art and culture experiences that haven’t necessarily had a lot of exposure through Solstice,” she says. “I envision more of the root of arts and culture being part of the festival. It’s about awareness and information and sharing. We’re going to be trying things we haven’t tried before. We’re going to have a treasure hunt, we’re going to have some student aerialists, we’ll have the Silent Disco. I want more whimsy!”
The Santa Barbara Summer Solstice Celebration has long since become a Thing with a global reputation. You are encouraged to seek beyond these pages the humble and unlikely origin story of Santa Barbara’s annual summertime spasm of love and overzealous floral prints. SB’s increasingly famous Summer Solstice celebration once routinely attracted some 100,000 gyrating celebrants from near and far. Naturally, Covid put a speed bump in front of that happy outpouring. Penny Little’s mission is to get us all the way back to baseline and beyond, re-infuse the spirit of SB Solstice with that explosive emotional energy that turned 1974’s gaggle of lovestruck friends mischievously cartwheeling up State Street into the jostling sunburst of communal love it is today; the Santa Barbara Summer Solstice Celebration.
Last year marked a post-Covid comeback for the trippy parade and wildly sun-splashed, frenetic festival that follows. This year, Solstice’s animating motif is “ROOTS.” As Little works to consolidate and build on last year’s successful Solstice return, it’s hard to imagine a more fitting theme. But the Dionysian juggernaut that is the Santa Barbara Summer Solstice Celebration – it needs your volunteerism, dear reader. And you need this core Santa Barbara experience – that of a creative dervish in the eye of a love-storm. Little sets the tone. “You know, there’ll be vegetables dancing down the street, there’s gonna be tree roots… I don’t know if there’ll be teeth roots,” she says without irony, lost in the moment. She snaps back into frame. “Sorry, I get excited.”
Volunteers can go to solsticeparade.com and click on the participant tab or send an email to registrar@solsticeparade.com. Do it for your madly tilting planet. See you there.
