Today is the Summer Solstice, a powerful day to celebrate the light, the bright fire of the Sun itself and the radiant light within each of us. During Summer Solstice, also known as Midsummer or Litha in the Pagan tradition, the sun reaches its highest point in the sky and gives us the longest day of the year (in the Northern Hemisphere).
It marks an important transition in the Wheel of the Year, the Earth’s seasonal cycle, which ancient traditions have celebrated through time recognising and honouring the wisdom of the Sun and the greater rhythms of our planets and stars. We see this celebrated in the many sacred and mystical sites, such as the Great Pyramids, Machu Picchu and Stonehenge – monuments and sites built to align directly with the rays of the sun at specific moments in the sun’s cycle, such as the Summer and Winter Solstices. At Stonehenge, when the first light of dawn breaks through the night sky on Summer Solstice the sunlight falls at the centre point of the rocks, lighting up these great ancient stones quite majestically.
This point in time is believed to be energetically charged, even magical, and ancient folklore speaks of Summer Solstice as a liminal, enchanted time where the veils between the worlds are thin and when the spirits and fairy folk might even reveal themselves to our human world. However, whether they do or don’t, we must simply open our eyes and heart here in our earthly realm to see that magic is already alive everywhere! That, particularly at this time, the Earth is fertile, abundant and bursting with new life and the buds of Spring are dancing in full bloom to the sun.
Our world is a dance of polarity and this time holds this dual energy – as we celebrate peak energies of creativity and outward expression and the power of manifestation we also stand at the threshold of the return into the darkness. It is the longest day and the shortest night, but then the cycle flips and the days start to shorten as the nights begin to get longer. As with all cycles, there is a natural ebb and flow of energy, a rhythm of expansion and contraction, teaching us that there are times to pause, to shed and to let go and times to learn, to activate and to grow. In the same way that we align with monthly lunar rhythms we can tune into and align with the yearly cycle of the Sun to support our wellbeing, our nourishment and own inner rhythms.
The wisdom of the light of the sun can support the alchemy of our lives and activate spiritual transformation.
How can we harness the light and celebrate the Midsummer Magic?
This magical time of Midsummer is a powerful time to get clear with our intentions and visions of the future, to celebrate what is already alive and beautiful in the world and to offer prayers to the land, to nature and to all of life on our extraordinary earth.
Dress for celebration and sacred ritual. Put on your favourite FARA dress and weave flowers into your hair.
Honour the Sun. Get up for Sunrise to meet the morning rays and tune into the energetic charge of the day.
Gratitude. Express your gratitude to the Sun and to our Earth and to the abundance in your life.
Fire Ritual. Spark up a fire, sit in circle, dance, sing songs, set intentions and offer prayers to the fire to be carried to the heavens…
Perhaps, on this day of Midsummer Magic, if we cast our wishes into the fire, allowing ourselves to expect the unexpected, the elemental spirits and the fairy folk might just hear them…
Summer Solstice Blessings, the Goddess is Alive and Magic is Afoot!
