Hail, the Magnificent Sun!
These are the kindest and best of days. The evenings grow long, the air is mild. Here where I live, anyway, life is good.
For our ancestors, too, these were good days. Planting and early tending of crops were over. Early lambs and hunting of spring animals were abundant. After the long, anxious wait of winter, this was a time to enjoy life.
The energy of Midsummer night is a long-understood atmosphere in Western culture. It means air warm enough for all-night goings-on outdoors. It means woods and meadows and moon-dappled hilltops. Nights for mystical and amorous adventures!
Wherever you live, I suspect you know what I mean. The long, lovely evenings.
At noon on the longest day is the time to salute the Sun, whose energy drives Life on planet Earth. Among my observances, I harvest long stalks of dry wild rye to bind into my Sun-broom, a ritual tool with which I spread (metaphorical) Light throughout the year…pretty handy to have in December, when the dark of the year brings gloom into the house before the candles and lights of Yule. And I lay a couple of bright crystals* in the sun to warm and catch the light, to carry the light of the Sun on my Focus (altar) throughout the year.
Ritually, I find this is a great time of year for a feast with friends, enjoying the rich bounty of early fruits and vegetables. If circumstances permit and fog doesn’t come in from the coast…naked feasting! Perhaps some drumming and/or dancing first. A time to feel that delicious air on our skins.
I’m only starting to plan a Midsummer celebration with a couple of friends, but all of this is on the table.
All hail the glorious Sun!
*Given the destructiveness of mineral mining, I will no longer buy mineral specimens. But I have a few quartz crystals I’ve accumulated over the years, and I use these. If you don’t have any, I encourage you instead to use glass bottles of water to capture “sun water” for ritual use, rather as I do with the moon.
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