Tag: summer solstice
Embracing the Magic of the Summer Solstice in Your Herb Garden
The summer solstice is a time when the natural world is ablaze with life, when the energies of light and warmth are at their peak. This celestial dance of light and shadow held profound significance for our ancestors. It was a time of celebration and thanks for the coming harvests, and a time to relax for a bit and play. Still today, some cultures celebrate by kindling fires, symbolizing the transformative power of the sun, and many communities gather to dance, sing, and rejoice in the abundance of the season.
Within the realms of folklore, the summer solstice is a moment in time when the veils between the human world and the realm of faeries grow gossamer thin. It is said that on the summer solstice eve, you may catch a glimpse of these ethereal beings, frolicking amidst the meadows and woodlands, their presence evoking a sense of wonder and…
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Standing Stones at the Summer Solstice
Ancient peoples set standing stones in various places in the world. In places, such as in the British Isles or Iceland, you can still often find these standing stones, trilithons, stone circles or stacks of stones. While their many uses are shrouded in antiquity and subject to some speculation, in the Druid Magic Handbook, John Michael Greer describes standing stones can channel the solar current into the earth, which offers blessing and healing to the land. I think it’s likely that standing stones can do many other things (tell time, point to astronomical features, be places of worship and community). Today, new groups of people and individuals are choosing to set stones. For our purposes, today, setting stones for land blessing and healing is certainly a good thing to do to provide spiritual support for the land.
The Summer Solstice is a fantastic time to raise a standing stone–in…
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Summer Solstice Celebration Oil
The Summer Solstice, or Litha as it is known in the old Celtic calendar, is only a few days away. The single day of the year of the when the light lasts longest and I want to put it in my pocket and keep it forever. I’d like to roll up all the beautiful hedgerows and the country lanes and lay them out somewhere in the sunshine so I can walk them all. I’d like to ask all the birds to keep singing and to stay in their nests all year round, as the swallows and the swifts and house martins all appear back in the eaves of our summer roofs. Wasn’t it empty without them?
I walk through our valley park and I wonder how I will ever live without the banks of cow parsley and the field poppies and the busy, busy butterflies and bees. It feels as…
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Working with and Honoring the Sun at the Solstice
Sacred rays of the sun
The sun’s rays come over the horizon, on the solstice, the most sacred of days. The solstice goes my many names, the day of high light, midsummer, Alban Hefin. Across the globe and through time, it has been celebrated since before recorded history. In the light of the sun, we have strength, warmth, growth, energy, abundance, healing, and wisdom. The sun has been shining down upon our beautiful planet has been shining for at least four billion years and we can expect it to remain unchanged for another five billion years. The sun is also enormous–it accounts for 99.86% of the mass of our solar system. It is such an incredible thing that it’s hard to image in the scope of the sun as it compares to of human lives or human history. You might say that the sun is one of the most…
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A MID-SUMMER CELEBRATION
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| In addition to the four great festivals of the Pagan Celtic year, there are four lesser holidays as well: the two solstices and the two equinoxes. In folklore, these are referred to as the four “quarter days” of the year, and modern Witches call them the four “Lesser Sabbats”, or the four “Low Holidays”. The summer solstice is one of them.
Technically, a solstice is an astronomical point and, due to the calendar creep of the leap-year cycle, the date may vary by a few days depending on the year. The summer solstice occurs when the sun reaches the… |
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Fragrant Linden Blossom Sun Cake: A Magical Midsummer Treat ~ Gather Victoria
Delicately perfumed with the GORGEOUS scent of linden blossoms, this moist, crumbly cake truly is delicious. I couldn’t stop eating it – so now I have to bake a whole new one for solstice! But that’s okay, it takes no time to whip up and I’ll get to enjoy even more of it! In Latvia,…
via Fragrant Linden Blossom Sun Cake: A Magical Midsummer Treat — Gather Victoria
Summer Solstice Ritual
By Slavic Witch
A Summer Solstice Sunrise Observance Ritual
By The Druid’s Garden
Summer Solstice Sunrise Progression from the Water at Yellow Creek State Park on the Summer Solstice 2017
My alarm goes off at 4:00am. I’m conveniently camping right along the lake shore, after having spent the evening watching the sunset on the eve of the summer solstice with members of our grove. My kayak is ready to launch, and I roll out of my sleeping bag and slip it quietly into the still, dark water. The starry heavens are brilliant in their glory, the moon a crescent low in the sky. But just as I begin to paddle, the first light on the horizon is present. The mists rise up from the lake water–the lake is warm like bath water even though the air itself is much cooler on this summer solstice morning. I paddle through the mist, finding a good spot from which to watch the sun rise. The lake…
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Paths I Walk 
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