Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year, the shortest night, and a tipping point: from here on out the days get shorter and the nights get longer. The solstice, sometimes called midsummer because by now farmers have long done their planting, is technically the first day of summer. It both ushers in the warmest season, and reminds that the season is short, slipping away day by day. For those who revere nature, summer solstice may be celebrated by a bonfire, and staying up to greet the dawn.
Spiritually speaking, the solstice signals a changing of the seasons and reminds us that we’ve reached the midpoint of the year. It simultaneously calls on us to acknowledge and celebrate the gradual pace of nature while waking us up to what’s left on our to-do lists for the year. This year, the first quarter moon, can function similarly: a time for strength and resolve and a chance to refocus and reinvest in your ideas, relationships, goals, or projects.
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This is the time of the rose, blossom and thorn, fragrance and blood. Now on this longest day, light triumphs, and yet begins the decline into the dark. The Sun King grown embraces the Queen of Summer in the love that is death because it is so complete that all dissolves into the single song of ecstasy that moves the worlds. So the Lord of Light dies to Himself, and sets sail across the dark seas of time, searching for the isle of light that is rebirth. We turn the Wheel and share his fate, for we have planted the seeds of our own changes and to grow we must accept even the passing of the sun. (The Spiral Dance, HarperCollins, 1999, p. 205)
Honoring the solstice can remind us just how precious each day and season is, because the truth of its passing away is also acknowledged. Gifts need to be appreciated, not taken for granted. Some will use their religious ritual to raise energy for healing, for re-aligning and redressing environmental wrongs, or for strengthening the sense of being part of nature, not set apart and individual, but interconnected in a larger whole, including the past, present and future. Such is the power of participating in the turning of the wheel of the year.
So this Thursday, take as much time as you need to use the power of both the Moon and the Sun to determine what changes you are ready to make in your life. Ready, set, go!
(Sources: Grove Harris, The HuffingtonPost.com; Sarah Coughlin, Refinery29.com)