Summer Solstice

The Summer Solstice takes place on about June 21 and marks the shortest, brightest night of the year. The Great Trilithon of the Neolithic Stonehenge frames the setting Sun at both the Winter and Summer Solstices. In Scotland, sometimes a procession was made around the fields with a burning torch of wood in order to obtain a blessing on the corn.


During the summer solstice the sun sits highest in the sky. This is the longest day of the year and the beginning of the summer season.


We feel the solar energy pouring down upon the Earth, vitalizing and strengthening us. Even as we revel in the light we prepare for the next season of growth, the return of the dark, as we now move towards winter Solstice.
Druids celebrated the Summer Solstice as the wedding of Heaven and Earth. The Goddess manifests as Mother Earth and God as Sun King. Many traditions throughout time have celebrated the Solstices, Ancient Egypt, and Aztecs of Mexico, Chinese, Chumash Indians of California, Indigenous Europeans. In present time you will find the Solstices celebrated by neo-pagan, Western Mystery tradition, Wiccan, Native American and the Catholic tradition as the Nativity of St. John the Baptist.


Bonfires were lit to celebrate the Sun at its height of power and to ask the Sun not to withdraw into winter darkness. Midsummer Eve festivals in the countryside of Cornwall, England would have firelight shinning from every hill and peak. Bright bonfires with dancers adorned in garlands and flowers and young men jumping through the tall flames. This ancient Cornwall Summer Bonfire tradition has been revived during the 1920’s and is still a popular festival. The spiral is a symbol associated with the Solstices. Ancient dances would follow the Sun’s movement like a spiral, people joined hands weaving through the streets, winding into a decreasing spiral into the middle then unwinding back out again. The Sun moving from contraction at the center of the spiral at winter solstice to expansion at Summer Solstice and back again. Midsummer’s Eve is one of the three spirit nights of the year, when the veils are thin between the worlds. The others are Beltaine (May Day) and Samhain (October, Celtic New Year). At the great stone circle, Stonehenge, England, the sun rises over the heel stone. Only one heel stone stands now, though there is consideration that there was another heel stone, the sun would rise between the two pillars. There are many stone sites in the world that are aligned to the Sun’s yearly travel.


The Summer Solstice is a time to reflect on the growth of the season. Seeds planted in the Earth as well as are own seeds of our souls. A time of cleansing and renewal. A time of joyous Love and growth.
Some ways to celebrate Summer Solstice:


Gathering of magical plants and healing herbs, as they are at their most potent. Five common Celtic sacred plants associated with Midsummer are St. John’s Wort, Vervain, Yarrow, Fern, and Mugwort.


Gather with others creating a festival of common sharing and service.
Keep a sacred fire burning.
Burn your winter Yule wreath at the summer bonfire.
Exchange songs, stories, and poems with others.
Dance, drum
Make an agreement of something that you will do to improve life, bring light and love into this world in your own creative way and begin to carry it out.
Bright Blessings


"Summer Solstice


Brown earth lay blanketed beneath
the weight of white snow
People hold within their heart
the promise of light
Light that overcomes the night
Igniting fire
That burns a hole
all the way to the hot dry summer fields
The hope that the light holds in winter
becomes in summer
the knowing of the sun’s pathway back again
We poise on the edge of these great turnings
Balanced night and day
Ah for a moment……
By: Cheryl Ban © 1998"


The solstice, much like the fire festivals, is a time when the veil between the worlds was thin and lines along which the world of the natural and supernatural might merge.  Fairylore is full of creatures that come to life on mid-Summers Eve, and many films, poems and other writings reflect these ideas beautifully.  While these themes have been relegated to the world of children, it's hard not to get excited on mid-Summer's Eve, read a few lines from the bard, and go back to a time when the lines of the imagination drew in and out of these realities with great ease. 


William Shakespeare seems to have drawn a little inspiration from the otherworld in his "Midsummer Night's Dream." 


"And as imagination bodies forth

The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen

Turn them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing

A local habitation, and a name
.
ACT V, Scene 1, A Midsummer Night’s Dream 
William Shakespeare"


Over time, we've come to view these otherworldly createatures as reflections of our own psyche, a means of taking parts of ourselves, thinking of them symbolically and creating stories around them, in order that we might better understand who we are and what it means to be human.   Above all, it enables us to align with the world we live in and for many of us the easiest entrance into that particular castle is through nature itself.  Is it any wonder we feel a certain alignment at mid-Summer.  The old Irish would have said it was 'our' time.  The time of the people.  The time to do the business of living.  Planting, sewing, reaping, marrying - and for a brief time at  mid-Summer wondering what else is out there and what there might be to align with.   For this reason, it was known as the 'light half' of the year.


There's hardly a townland in Ireland without a fort, fairy ring, holy well or some 'place.'  Magical places were always thresholds, where rivers met or townlands bounded each other.  Magical times were when time met, dawn and dusk.  Of couse, no one had to explain this to us back then, we ruled those worlds and happily travelled in and out of them after school each day.  Of course they were magic!  Such a fuss!


So, here's a simple fairy story, the first one I learned, and the root story of one of the first songs I learned 'De Luain, De Mairt' in celebration of the Summer, the Solstice and the Celtic Imagination! 


 A Simple Fairy Story


'Once upon a time there were two brothers who lived on the edge of the woods.  Both were born with a hideous humps on their back.


One day, one of the brothers set out to walk into the village.  While passing the fairy fort he heard music.  The fairies came out and invited him in.  They played wonderful music for him, fed him, played games with him and even took the lump from his back.  Delighted, he returned home  to tell his brother of his great adventure and good luck.


The next day, his brother set out and also heard music while passing the fairy fort.  The fairies invited him in.  However, he was not so lucky.  They were cruel to him, whipped him and gave him the lump from his brother's back. The poor man went home beaten, disappointed and carrying two humps on his back!


So, is there a moral to this story?  I would say - no.  Nor will you find a moral in most fairy stories.  An interesting thing about fairylore is that it's likely to interweave nicely with whatever it is you believe in the first place.  The one thing it clearly does is reflect life.  One day you walk down the street and have a great day.  For whatever reason, you walk down the next day and all hell breaks loose!' 


The midsummer held a recognition of sign of the fertility, involving holidays, festivals, gatherings, rituals or other celebrations around that time.


There are a multitude of legends and rites involving the night of the Summer Solstice: One of the most popular costumes in Europe and North Africa is the harvest of medicinal herbs and magic that day. It is believed that the fullness of God's strength is impregnated with these herbs and contains all the magic and healing power to cure diseases. Mistletoe and basil, as many other herbs are harvested and used ritualistically to preserve energy in times of cold spells and charms.
Purifying baths and miracle cures are performed in the evenings magical sources, rivers and waterfalls. It is also believed that whatever is dreamed, desired or requested on the night of Litha become a reality.
The ancient peoples of Europe believe that night, magical creatures go running through fields and forests and could easily be seen and contacted.
On that day the amulets are burned in the previous year and new protective talismans, potions to prophetic dreams and filters are made to enjoy the great moment of power.
It is customary to continue the great fire of Beltane, but it jumps to get rid of the negativity and misfortune. Traditionally this fire is kindled with twigs of spruce and oak, two trees considered magical by the pagans.

Litha

Litha marks the first day of summer and is between Erelitha Afterlitha and the calendar of an old German eight Neopagan Sabbats. The term is used especially in the calendar Asatru.
Occurs in the Southern Hemisphere on 21 December and 21 June in the northern hemisphere.
This is a time to whom the power of the sun reaches its apex and the flowers, foliage and lawns are beautiful and abundant flowers and greens. Many of the stone circlessuch as Stonehenge, and pre-Celtic monuments are aligned with the sunrise
After the union of the Goddess and God in Beltane, The God is an adult, a man trained and became a father - of the grains. In its fullness, it brings the heat of summer and the promise of total fertilization success of the link made ​​with the Goddess. As the pinnacle of God, also foreshadows their decline at that time God,after fulfilling its function of fertilizer, gives his last kiss and walks to his belovedcountry in the summer (Another World), using the boat to die Death on Samhain. In some traditions to celebrate the farewell of the reign of God Oak (Lord of the YearAscending) and the beginning of the reign of the God of Holly (Lord of the YearDescending) that will last till Yule. This is the only Sabbath that sometimes spells do,because it is believed that its magical power is very great.