Summer Solstice
Litha, June 20th
June 20th, 2024 is the longest day of the year. I greet this day by trying not to notice that every day from this one on will be just a little bit shorter. How did that happen so fast? Instead, I keep my focus on it being summer, here and now, and while the Celts called this date “Midsummer,” our western tradition is to mark it as summer’s very first day. So I’ll call it the beginning, not the middle, not the end. It just feels better.
Summer is about life. There’s so much life around us right now that it seems chaotic to the untrained eye. But everything is following a pattern. It’s a predictable pattern to those who study it. The slightest shift in any part of the pattern, changes the whole pattern.
Shifts in the pattern are the jobs of humans. We change tiny parts of the pattern with every act, thought, and experience. These are the threads of our lives, and they are spun into the pattern of the Universe, shifting it throughout. I imagine the pattern like a constantly changing kaleidoscope, somehow ever more and more beautiful as each human lifetime is woven into the design.
Summer
In the summer, my focus is on LIFE in all its beautiful, messy wonder. I’m writing this post outside, in the shade, with life surrounding me. There are eleven towering evergreens standing sentry behind and above, and on one side. I’ve never counted them until today. 11. What a wonderful—literally, wonder-full—number. 1-1, unity, oneness, connection.
There are exotic looking hostas, green with white edges, white with green edges, a deep green that looks almost blue, and others. We love hostas, they’re effortlessly abundant.
Effortless Abundance
Summer solstice energy is beautifully aligned with the energy of effortless abundance. It occurs to me to write here that stage one of effortless abundance is to acknowledge—no—celebrate the abundance already present in one’s life.
In fact, that idea feels to me like the perfect Summer Solstice Message:
Effortless abundance begins with celebrating abundance in now.
In this moment, and this moment, and this moment, and so on.
The more we look for something, the more of it we will find. The looking, you see, shifts the pattern of our energy. We find a little bit of abundance we had forgotten about, and feel a thrill of, Oh, my! Maybe this stuff really works! And then we look for a little more, more expectant that we’ll find it, and when we do, we become even more expectant.
We can begin creating more abundance, simply by celebrating, relishing, and enjoying every bit of abundance we find already around us.
Nature Counts
I’ve found an abundance of mosses growing in my vast, abundant back yard. I am always thrilled about mosses, since reading Gathering Moss by Robin Wall Kimmerer. What a beautiful book!
There are wild strawberries, too, and patches of wild mint. Pennyroyal and wild violets grow between every rock they can find, including those that border the stone patio where I love to write. Even during heatwaves, it stays cool beneath those trees. They exhale air cooled by the earth through their roots. They are quite literally air conditioners.
Celebrating the Summer Solstice
Summer Solsctice, called Litha by the Celts, is a celebration of the sun reaching peak power. It’s reflected the fertile fields growing lush with all we’ve planted, and the promise of the harvest to come. Symbolically the goddess (earth) is pregnant and the child is growing. The god (sun) is the father, of course. All is right with the world, and it’s time to enjoy the summer.
Things to do
Take time off. The work of planting is done. The work of the harvest lies ahead. This is the time to celebrate all we have by immersing ourselves in it. We work to add things to our lives, but spend more time working than enjoying those things when we get them. When we take time to enjoy our abundance fully, we match the energy of abundance all this month of June.
Bask in the sun (no more than 15-20 minutes without protection. Use mineral-based sun block, cover up with clothing, or move into the shade.) A sunbathing meditation on the meaning of the longest day, and the sun’s peak of power might open new dimensions of understanding. Light is the root word of enlightenment, after all.
Bonfires are a form of sympathetic magic, mimicking the flames of the sun. Combustible spells (written spells, herbal sachets, oil-based brews (with care) thrown into the flames of a Litha bonfire are thrown, symbolically, into the flames of the sun.
Sex is a sacrament of life and so honors this same energy. To do sex magic, keep your goal in the back of your mind, releasing it at the moment of orgasm. Magical etiquette says you should inform your partner if you intend come for a cause, so to speak. This is not a problem if your partner is yourself.
Competition energy is strong, be it in sports or in other areas of life. Professional competition forces each of us to evolve and improve constantly. This is a great time to think about the competition in our lives. Who am I competing against? How am I doing? What can I learn from my competitors? How do they inspire me to evolve and improve?
This is a time to focus on growth, expansion, and evolution in all areas of our lives. It’s a time to focus on enlightenment. How are we changing? What are we learning that we didn’t know before? Where are we expanding? Have we become stagnant in any area and if so, how can we expose that area to the creative, fertilizing powers of the sun at its peak?
A Burning Magic Spell
As always, read the spell through before performing.
Paid subscribers get access to a whole bunch of spells like this.
The perfect kind of spellwork for Litha involves burning. Here’s simple burning spell.
You’ll need:
A bonfire (Or use a candle inside a cauldron or other flameproof container)
A writing implement
Something flammable to write o.
A drum or rattle (Optional)
Write the wish or desire on anything flammable; a leaf, a flower petal, a piece of wood, a scrap of fabric. The more meaning the object has in relation to the spellcaster and her goal, the better.
Carry this written spell with you as you dance around a bonfire or a candle-in-cauldron. Start slowly, moving deposit (clockwise,) in whatever way you feel like moving; dance, or bounce, skip, or walk.
As you move, chant or sing, drumming or rattling along. This is how you raise magical energy, the movement and the sound. The rhythm is magic in the form of sound and rhythm.
I might chant: “Isis, Astarte, Diana, Hecate, Demeter, Kali, Inanna,” over and over.
I might sing, “She changes everything she touches and everything she touches changes.”
Hold your written wish in hand or tuck somewhere against your skin if you’re drumming. More importantly, hold the feeling of the wish in your heart—the having of it, not the longing for it. The having of it. The joy of having the wish must fill you as you dance.
Move clockwise, always clockwise, moving gradually faster, chanting gradually faster, gradually louder, and faster and louder, and faster and louder, and more and more until you feel the energy reach a crescendo, a peak. At that moment, throw the paper into the fire and all your energy with it, as you relax your body entirely. Sink to the ground or floor, letting all that energy you’ve raised follow your wish into the fires of the sun. Release, release, release. Exhale fully.
It is done. Rise when you wish. Give thanks in advance. Celebrate the Solstice. Release all thoughts of the wish. It is done.
If you cast a circle before this rite, then of course, take it down in your usual way.
After magical work it is always a good idea to ground yourself with a grain-based snack such as a cookie, cracker, bread, rice, oatmeal, muffin, etc.