The light of the Sun gives us life – but we have an even deeper connection with those illuminating beams, says Mark Vernon

The summer solstice happened just a few days ago – at 3:42am on 21 June to be precise.  The long days of summer are at their height. Brief days are a chilly memory, in the northern hemisphere at least. The sky is blue, swallows dart across it.

That set me thinking, because light is not just a feature of warmer months. It’s widely discussed by many philosophers. In fact, you could say it’s the organising principle of philosophy.

Take Plato’s well-known allegory of the cave. The human quest is likened to realising that the unexamined life is akin to being imprisoned in a pit. Inquiry, desire and courage can liberate stuck souls, insofar as they become able to enjoy the light of the Sun which, for Plato, stands for all that is good.

It sounds like a leap but, at one level, the link arises from the humdrum observation that all of life depends upon the Sun’s radiant rays. Even the strangest monster at the bottom of a perpetually dark ocean will feed on organic detritus sinking from the surface. Conversely, a ray of sunshine will lighten the most monotonous of working days with an idle burst of brightness in a lunchtime park.

Plato was onto a subtler truth as well. A deeper connection between the Sun and goodness stems from reflecting on the way our nearest star creates light. In short, it is self-illuminating. Unlike the Moon, which reflects sunlight, or the energy that is consumed on Earth by releasing stored sunlight, the Sun gives rise to its own light. That makes it godlike, Plato continues, because only a high deity can give birth to itself.

This must be the reason human beings have always worshipped the Sun: it’s not just about being dependent on it, but being in awe of it too. The Egyptians named the self-causing origin Ra, the Persians Mithra, the Greeks Helios, the Romans Sol. That singular day from which the rest of the week seems to spring, Sunday, rightly honours the god.

A link between light and a liberated life follows because freedom comes when life is illuminated by the brightness of inner sight. Plato didn’t presume freedom was about choice, as is the default today, because he knew a lasting freedom: awareness. Insight brings options. Ignorance leads up blind alleys.

It’s the inner freedom that Shakespeare celebrated in his famous summer sonnet, “Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer’s Day?” The thrust of the poem is that the summer season is lovely, yes, though its short-lived happiness can be lengthened indefinitely when it is recognised as a reflection of the eternal summer that does not fade nor suffer the indignity of being interrupted by cloud and rain. Lovers know this eternity because they taste its inner light.

I think this is why people tend to prefer summer to winter. It may have a little to do with human physiology, as seasonal affective disorder postulates, but there’s a more obvious link: summer is a season within which to connect with that light by which we know we are buzzingly, bloomingly alive.

It’s enlightenment, meant in the sense of the intelligence that can rejoice in the heart of things. In Plato, such an awakening is enabled by an organ of perception that we all have, which in Greek is called nous. The word is often translated as “mind”, though that has become misleading in an age that regards minds as islands of consciousness, cast adrift in a natural world, that behave robotically – perhaps out of instincts shaped by evolution; perhaps out of brute mechanisms of cause and effect. However, before the 17th century, nous or mind was regarded as the capacity to resonate with the cosmos. Then, human intelligence was not a disconnected, private possession but a wonderful extension of the intelligence that fills the universe.

The older way of seeing things makes sense. It’s why science can be done. The human mind can turn towards the world and make sense of it, because the mind’s way of thinking matches the world’s way of working. The scientist doesn’t invent the patterns called laws of nature, but rather discovers them to be effective ways of describing how things are.

The Neoplatonic philosopher Plotinus put it like this: “No eye ever saw the Sun without becoming sun-like, nor can a soul see beauty without becoming beautiful.” The thought can seem like a colourful metaphor, as if the mind shines through the eyes, radiant with loveliness. It does do that but – like his predecessor, Plato – Plotinus was making a much more direct observation: the mind and the Sun both love the same substance called light – and by loving light, share its life.

DH Lawrence was alert to the soulfulness of such physical things, and he put it this way: “We ought to dance with rapture that we should be alive and in the flesh, and part of the living, incarnate cosmos. I am part of the Sun as my eye is part of me. That I am part of the earth my feet know perfectly, and my blood is part of the sea.”

The same awareness can come when viewing a painting, listening to a piece of music, following a rational argument, greeting a lover. Look inwards and note how the experience feels like coming home. It explains why an ideal holiday is sitting in the Sun, reading a well-plotted book and/or appreciating the delights of the local culture. The whole person enjoys a moment of unity: body, mind and spirit are bathed in inner and outer light.

A holiday, a sunbeam, an insight, a summer’s day. Each speaks of light. Each speaks of love. Each speaks of life.

Mark Vernon presents a new Thought for the Week on our regular online event “A Drink with the Idler“. Join us on Thursday 3 July at 6-7pm, when our guest Geoff Dyer will be telling Tom Hodgkinson about his new memoir Homework, about growing up in postwar Britain.

“A Drink with the Idler” is free to subscribers – otherwise £7.50.

Subscribers may comment. Please add your idle thoughts using the box below.

Idler No. 103, July 2025, is available in Waitrose, Waterstones, Smiths Travel outlets, select Smiths high street branches and around 100 indie stores. Click here for your nearest stockist.