Thursday, 4:30 PM
The early druid gets the first rays of solstice sun
(Mark Wilson/Globe Staff)
Siani Overstreet is a member of the Ancient Order of the Druids, a church that draws on Celtic traditions from Britain, Ireland, and Gaul that date back some 1,200 years.
Today is a special day for druids, the summer solstice, when the sun shines more light on the northern hemisphere than any other day of the year.
At her home in Sunderland, Overstreet woke up at 3:30 a.m. and went to the campus of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where there is a circle of 14 boulders called the sunwheel.
The sunwheel is a modern Stonehenge, built by the school in 2000 as a 56-ton astronomical calendar used to track the sun and moon.
When the first rays of sunshine hit the 8- to 10-foot high boulders just before 5:15 a.m., Overstreet was there holding vigil. She stayed until it was fully flight and went home. The sun will not set until almost 8:25 p.m. after more than 15 hours of daylight.
