The Summer Solstice is here – one of my very favourite celebrations on the wheel of the year. This is the longest day, the day when light lasts the longest and the night is the shortest. Why do our days and nights change in such a way? Well, our planet does not spin on a vertical axis – it is tilted (by 23.5 degrees to be exact). This means that the amount of sunlight changes throughout the year as we orbit around the sun. On the Summer Solstice, we are the most tilted towards the sun and thus are bathed in the most hours of sunlight. As a scientist, I love the planetary explanation and as a witch, I love the spiritual significance.
The sun is high, its power is at its greatest and light floods the land, and yet I always feel so very bittersweet. Why – I hear you ask. Well, I spend all of winter bemoaning the oppressive darkness and the cold that seems to seep into my very soul. Other people talk about how much they love bundling up in jumpers and hats and gloves and I look at these people as though they’ve lost their goddamn minds. I love summer. I love sun, I love the green of the trees and the blue of the skies. I love barefoot wandering through woodlands and long, lazy picnics in the park. I love wearing shorts and sunnies and not much else. In winter I long for the Winter Solstice so that I can count every minute of light added to the days afterwards. And then all too soon I find myself here, at the Summer Solstice, soaking up the sun and the long luxurious day that lasts past ten o’clock, and yet I feel a pang in my heart because I know that from now on, the darkness slowly starts to creep back in and the days inexorably shorten.
And that is why I feel that the solstice is a bittersweet blessing, right now, at the height of summer. However, I’m going to push it to the back of my mind because the sun is shining brightly and the park is calling me. I know I should be grateful; I live in England – it could have been raining. It does that most of the time. But Goddess has blessed us with glorious sun and so once I have finished work I head home, pack up my ritual items and off I go.
I am so very lucky to live just fifteen minutes walk from one of London’s biggest and most beautiful parks – Greenwich Park. And I am doubly lucky because inside this park is my sacred space – the site of an ancient Roman temple to the goddess Diana and other deities. When I arrive, I greet the ancestors and reverently enter the space. It is an unobtrusive green mound with just a sign indicating that this was once a Temple. Laying out my altar, I can feel the sun warming my skin and blessing me. I lay out my white cloth (this is actually my sacred shawl I wear in ritual and ceremony and it doubles up brilliantly as an altar cloth). Upon my cloth I place my cherished statue of Sekhmet (Egyptian goddess of the sun), juicy oranges, sweet apricots and succulent mango. The colour of the orange fruits is so very vibrant against the white cloth and the oranges shine in the sun. I add crystals, my Tibetan brass mirror and the tiny bottles of water that I placed on my windowsill last night to absorb the Solstice energy of the rising sun this morning.
One my altar is carefully laid out, I settle myself comfortably upon the grass and close my eyes. I feel the sun kiss my skin. I feel the warm breeze in my hair. I feel the Solstice energy all around me. I imagine a glowing green thread extend from my heart and travel down my body into the ground. I am connected to earth. I then imagine a glowing golden thread extend from my heart and travel upwards into the sky until it reaches that glowing orb. I am connected to sun.
I open my eyes and begin my ceremony. Taking my Sekhmet statue in my hand, I hold Her up to the sun and greet Her. I honour her and ask her to bless me and my ceremony with her presence. I then call upon other sun goddesses – Wuriupranilli, Alectrona, Amaterasu. Then I light my candle (briefly, I am in a park with lots of dry grass) and I hold it up to the sun as an honouring of all sun goddesses and this sacred day. I then blow it out; I have no intention of ending my day by setting my precious place ablaze (and getting arrested in the process!)
It is now time for me to give thanks. Today is the day of the longest light and so I give thanks for all of the blessings in my life. My sister (who is also my best friend), my job, my partner, my darling doggos, my friends. It is easy to complain about what we don’t have or what we once had and many of us need to remember what we *do* have. Gratitude is proven to improve mental health, and as someone who suffers from anxiety, I could definitely do with a boost. Now it is time for me to set my intentions. Energy is pouring in from the sun; the strongest it will be all year, and so this is the perfect time to harness that energy and use it to set intentions for goals and aspirations. I am determined that this will be the year that I write my book. I have been planning or writing books for twenty years now, and I have yet to finish one. Not only I am the queen of procrastination, I am also an expert in enthusiastically starting things that I never finish. Hey, at least I’m fully aware of my flaws. And so, in the presence of Sekhmet and the sun, I set my intention that I WILL write the damn book this year!
And now it is time to eat. I feast on fruit and I can taste the sunshine in the orange and apricot and mango. Juice runs down my chin and I don’t even care. Once I have eaten my fill, I place an offering of fruit on the ground. An offering to Goddess, to the land, to the fae. We must always give something back.
I sit until the sun starts to set and long shadows spread across the land. Carefully packing up my altar, I feel a profound sense of peace. As someone that suffers from severe anxiety for a lot of my life, these moments are precious. I stand up and face the sun, which is now a flaming orange ball that hangs low in the sky, bathing everything in an orange light that transforms the park into an ethereal landscape. I breathe it all in, give thanks, and I turn and head for home. The park is still full of sun-worshippers, Londoners keen to soak up the rays on this perfect evening.
While I walk through the park, I sense the presence of the fae. It is Midsummer after all, it is their time to play. I catch glimpses of light, darting movements out of the corners of my eyes. However, I don’t go looking for them. It is their park now and we humans are a nuisance to them. We are large and noisy and destructive. The park belongs to them tonight. Before I walk through the gates, I leave a special offering for them – items I have collected on my walk this evening. Some sprigs of lavender, a feather, a smooth stone and my last apricot.
The Summer Solstice is a beautiful and yet poignant moment. It reminds us that there is so much light in our lives, and yet we must also accept that it will fade and that we must also endure darkness before the light returns. An apt metaphor for human existence.
Blessed Be.
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