Summer Solstice is the season Mother Nature is at the peak of abundance, and you too can join this natural cycle and accomplish miracles. Give your full attention to your fiery passion for life, and nurture and restore yourself with watery emotional compassion for where you are now, and also for the future you desire. That’s an ancient formula for abundance at the time of Midsummer Solstice.
The Summer Solstice Sun is at Zenith
Summer Solstice, June 21st, is the longest day and shortest night of the year. The Sun’s power is at it’s most potent – and on that day, the sun reverses, and the days shorten, as the nights lengthen. The journey into the harvest season has begun, and at the Winter Solstice, the Sun again “turns” and the days begin to lengthen.
The solar cycle was revered by your ancient ancestors, and their “Sun Markers” are etched in stone cave drawings – in monuments like Stonehenge and in medicine wheels. The temples in Egypt, those of the Mayans, and the Inca in Peru center around the Sun.
Sun cycles and life cycles.
The visual movement of the sun to the north – and then the reversal (returning to the South) marked a turning point in the year that has been celebrated since time-out-of-mind. And many of the ancient traditions are embedded in our modern world — their origins obscure. Yet your cellular memory still holds the wisdom of Nature.
You are no longer dependent on seasons and daylight for your survival. A drought does not mean famine, and winter no longer means “early to bed.” The importance of the sun is lessened by today’s technology. Electricity, and infrastructure for travel and transportation advances eclipse the sun’s dominance. It is easy to forget all life depends on the sun.
Sun as the source of life.
Ancient people lived the truth that life came from the sun and without it, life could not exist. The journey of the sun through the solar cycle (seasons) guided the planting, growing, and harvesting times – as it does today.
The sun may have lessened in importance in your mind – but not in your life. You are still bound genetically to the ancient cycles. Can you feel this special time of year as unique and offering you an opportunity? It is – don’t miss it!
Summer Solstice – the season of abundance
Summer is a happy and joyous time, especially when compared to the darker, quiet and colder winter. Midsummer (Summer Solstice) is roughly the middle of the growing season – the time when everything is abundant and flourishing. Brilliant fields of flowers bloom, trees are luscious green with new leaves; and vegetables, sweet fruits and berries are ripening. Nature is reaching her peak of abundance.
Ancient symbols unit the earth and sun.
Midsummer is the time when the Sun reaches the peak of its power. The Sun, manifests as the Sun King, or The Green Man seated on his Oak-foliage throne – and lord of the forests. His face surrounded by leaves is seen carved in stone or wood in churches,on fountains, and at gateways.
On this longest day of the year, light and life are abundant. At mid-summer, the Sun God has reached the moment of his greatest strength. His union with the Earth Mother Goddess is the promise of abundance, and she manifests as a pregnant Mother Nature, or Litha (Saxon).
Capture the essence of Midsummer or Summer Solstice.
Natural cycles of the seasons influence you as do circadian rhythms of night and day. Why not test (and try) what the ancient cultures knew to be the “energy of the times.”
If you align with Nature, you took the time to carefully plant the seed ideas you want to grow into your future at the Spring Equinox (March 21st.) Now is the time to nurture your passion just as the sun nurtures all life. Focus on what is growing in your life, weed out what you do not want, and water (love and nurture) your Dreams.
Nurture and enjoy NOW.
Take the time to celebrate both work and leisure – for it is in enjoyment and childlike play that life grows abundantly. Accept and make time for enjoying your current life – before harvest. Take responsibility now for your future and assure abundance at your harvest time — in the Fall.
Find your balance: Passion and Compassion.
The power of the sun at Summer Solstice is at its most potent, and the earth is fertile with a promising harvest. Midsummer is a time to balance the Sun’s warming rays – strength and passion – and the cooling freshness of the “water or compassion” that nurtures all growth.
Through awareness, willpower, strength and conscious action – your passion for your creations come to fruition at harvest in the Fall. Explore your passions and the “fiery force – the heat” within you.
Next, find a good balance to your fiery passion in your love and compassion for your creations, and your love and desire to share your harvest with others. Deep heart-felt caring nurtures your dreams and your future. Without the balance – the passion alone is easily misdirected and can “burn up” your destiny in wasted efforts, wrong directions and intense misplaced emotions.
Without the soothing, nurturing of your heart-felt compassion, like a plant starved for water, your dreams dry up and wither on the vine.
Yet compassion alone (the watery emotions) may lie stagnant, without the balance of the fiery passion and direction of a clear focus. In right combination, fire and water nurture a productive, abundant future.
A balance between passion and compassion fine tunes your sense of purpose, and your inspiration guides you in the right direction. When your heart and compassion are your guides, your creativity will blossom, bear fruit and return you a bountiful harvest.
Summer Solstice and the first day of summer.
“Solstice” is Latin for “sun stands still” (sol “sun” and sistere “to cause to stand still.”) To those watching, the (apparent movement of the Sun’s path north or south) comes to a stop before reversing direction.
To the observers, the sun appears stationary in its northern and southern progression and seem to rise and set at the same location on the horizon for about five days before and after the actual solstice. At that time the Sun begins to wane or lose power – and the days shorten and nights lengthen.
The Summer Solstice and Marriage.
The union of the Solar power and Mother nature is the promise of abundance, and the fruit of that union is the harvest or birth of your Dreams. In a similar fashion, the potency of this time joined couples in marriage.
The Romans celebrated Summer Solstice as sacred to Juno, the patroness of marriage, and her month, June, remains today the most popular time for weddings.
In old Europe, the time between planting and the harvesting of the crops, allowed time for weddings. June was selected, as the sacred marriage or union of the Goddess and God occurred in early May at Beltaine and it was unlucky to marry in May.
The Druids’ celebrated the day as the “wedding of Heaven and Earth”, and that may also be one of the beginnings in the present day belief of a “lucky” wedding in June.
The only moon of Midsummer is the Honey Moon, a time when the hives are harvested for honey. Fermented honey is the ancient drink of the Gods, known as mead, and customarily drunk at wedding parties. The roots of the modern day “honeymoon” survive in current customs.
Summer Solstice is celebrated around the world – in England at Stonehenge and Avebury thousands gather before the sunrise to welcome the Sun.
Other ancient names and celebrations for Summer Solstice.
Midsummer eve was also called Alban Heruin or Alban Hefin, Whitsuntide, Vestalia (Ancient Roman), Cerridwen (England), the Faiery goddess Aine of Knockaine (Ireland), the Feast of Epona (Ancient Gaulish), Feill-Sheathain, Gathering Day, Sonnwend, Thing-Tide, All-Couple’s Day, Johannistag, and St. John’s Day.
After converting Europe to Christianity, the Pope declared the feast day of St. John the Baptist to be June 24th and is one of the oldest feasts in church records. The date was the Summer Solstice time of Jack-in-the-Green or The Green Man. He was converted to the Feast of St. John the Baptist, and St. John was then often portrayed in leafy and rustic attire, sometimes with horns and cloven feet (like the Greek Demi-God Pan) and with the classic face in the foliage of The Green Man.
Summer Solstice was a time of magic, meeting with the Fairies and of protective garlands of herbs and flowers to deflected evil spirits. St. John’s Wort (also known as “chase-devil”) is used today by herbalists to calm emotions and relieve depression.
Most celebrations (Celts & Slavs among others) marked Midsummer with huge bonfires that celebrated the power of the sun. Couples jumped through the flames, with the belief their crops grew as high as they leapt. Some traditions celebrated this time of year by setting large wheels on fire and then rolling them down a hill into a body of water.
The Chinese marked the day by honoring Li, the Chinese Goddess of Light. The Summer solstice ceremony in balance celebrated the earth, the feminine, and the yin forces of darkness.
Ancient Egypt worshiped the sun and many temples and monuments mark Solar Solstice cycles and star formations.
Native American rock formations, petroglyphs (carvings etched in stone) and stone markers dot the North and South American continents. Ancient cultures from the Mayan, Oltec, and Aztec to Machu Pichu in Peru mark solar times and stars with stone temples and markers.
Your Good Fortune: “Aligning with the natural cycles empowers you now to succeed against all odds.”
