Ahhhhhh… The Sun. The God of Gods. Divine Designer. Harbinger of All that is Good.

The darkness trembles as The Sun heralds its arrival, sending ripples of thunderous crimsons, amethysts, and lilacs across the ill-fated night. Moving with the undefeated swagger of a champion, it moves forth on a sweeping arc.

Almost everything in this world is imbued with a gendered quality. Many Indo-European and Afro-Asiatic alike maintain a tightly gendered system of language. Yet, regardless of the language we speak, we all see the world in such frames to some degree.

In the Romantic languages of French, Spanish and Italian, The Sun is masculine (le soleil, il sole, and el sol, respectively), with the Moon cast as its feminine counterpart. In contrast, the German language views the celestial bodies differently, with the feminine Sun (die Sonne) and masculine Moon (der Mond).

This gender dichotomy is deeply rooted in historical mythology. Sun goddesses feature in Shinto (Amaterasu), Norse (Sól), Inuit (Malina), and Germanic (Sunna or Sowilo) mythology. These deities embody The Giver of Life, symbolising warmth, benevolence, patience and wisdom.

Masculine Sun deities are, however, more prevalent, symbolising power, strength, leadership, and dominance. Notable examples include Ra of Ancient Egypt; Helios and Sol from Greek and Roman mythology; Surya of Hinduism; Inti of Inca, and Dažbog of Slavic mythology.

To assign a gender to The Sun is as futile as attempting to gender the divine itself. In its magnificence and magnanimity, its edifying equanimity, The Sun transcends and belittles any notion of human feeling.

Advancing with the quiet confidence of an Old Master, it casts forth goodness from its heart like the Stone Ancients in Sony Santa Monica’s God of War. Like humble servants beneath castle walls, we wait to seize upon the sustenance scattered beneath.

Pure, radiant energy, cast across millions of miles of vacuum. So intense is its love, so profound its power, the feeling of its soft touch on one’s skin is invigorating like no other.

It is Total; It is Absolute. Its grace is everything, its kindness the same. Strength is not merely a force but a nurturing presence.

It embodies all who are beautiful, all who are brilliant. The embrace of a Mother – the enveloping, unbounded, warming love of acceptance. The presence of a Father – the guiding, knowing, reliable love of support.

The Sun transcends a single simple relationship. It is a Friend, long forgotten and now returned, of whom the mere sight is enough to split smiles and nestle shoulders. A Brother alongside whom we stride, cut from the same cloth, with mutual understanding and respect. A Lover the same, but also galvanising and heating, spurring and spanning.

Many people, particularly in the UK, struggle with Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). Characterised by the symptoms of normal depression, it arises only throughout certain seasons of the year (namely Autumn and Winter).

While the effects of winter contribute to SAD – we spend more time inside, nature is inhospitable, days feel much shorter, and we socialise less – especially crucial is the absence of The Sun’s nourishing energy.

For all our lives, we have turned to The Sun for sustenance, reassurance, and guidance. When it is there, we are enlivened, emboldened, lifted and alive. In its absence, we cannot help sometimes to mourn the lacking presence of life itself.

This is not a uniquely human experience – all that is sentient grieves the lost Life Giver, then celebrates with rhapsodic abandon its return.

The plants throw a banquet. Unfurling banners of countless scents and sizes, they twirl and flutter in expressing their gratitude. Great fruits are born, which the birds and insects celebrate with their song and murmur.

All Life stands to attention, to bask in the Glory of the Great One.

We humans respond in kind, in song and prose and dance. Aside from love, The Sun may well be the most prominent motif in all of music. As metaphor for greatness, or for celebrating directly, artists across every genre have spoken to its essence.

The Beatles’ mythical reverence on Sun King, the brash jolliness on Good Day Sunshine, and the reassuring gratitude on Here Comes the Sun. Greentea Peng evokes its silkily seductive qualities on Mr. Sun (miss da sun), while Dario G’s Sunchyme centres on its celebratory rhythm.

Leon Bridges and Khruangbin’s Texas Sun speak to its smoky intangibility, where The Avalanches and Perry Farrell worship with ecstatic passion on Oh The Sunn!. Sunshine and its absence are used as metaphors for invoking both the soaring lows (Bill Withers’ Ain’t No Sunshine) and sweeping highs (Katrina & The Waves Walking on Sunshine) of romantic love.

And on Dreamville’s Under the Sun, Swae Lee and Post Malone’s Sunflower, and Noname’s Sunny Duet, we find further delight in the glee of an eternal summer.

Today, The Sun was shining. It was shining yesterday. It was shining the day before that, too. As winter’s cruel grip is melted away, so too is its biting frost and icy darkness. We yawn and stretch as it greets us, and smile as our oldest friend steps back into our life.

How good it is to see The Sun again.