Midsummer
Historically, Midsummer—also known as the summer solstice, or the Longest Day, coming up this year on June 21—was a time of enjoyment. Crops had been planted, but they weren’t bearing yet, so there was little to do but celebrate the long days and have a good time. Garden vegetables were beginning to produce and lambs and new goats were mature enough to cull, so there were food and drink, and time to enjoy one another’s company, create culture, and live at ease.
Today, sadly, most people aren’t even aware that the summer solstice is upon them. It passes as just another day, despite the fact that we make such a big deal about celebrating Christmas around the winter solstice, or Yule. (Which is coming up for Atheoapagans in the Southern Hemisphere: hi, there!)
To me, Midsummer is a highly sacred time. It is when the blessings of the mighty Sun are strongest and we can live in the luxury of extra time, comfortable temperatures, and opportunity for socializing and sharing rituals.
I’ve posted ideas for rituals for Midsummer before, which you can find by following the link above. But here are some other ideas for how to celebrate this most temperate and generous time:
- Get naked! At least around the house, but if you can, out in the sun in nature or your garden or at a swimming hole, feel the Sun and the lovely air on your skin. There is nothing more freeing and expansive than the feeling of simply Being, in your body, unfettered, in the world.
- Do some adulting. Midsummer is the Sabbath of maturity and being in the prime of life. You can celebrate that by taking care of bits of adult business you’ve been putting off: accounting, maybe, or clearing out that closet.
- Sexytime. Lovemaking and sexuality aren’t just for May Day; while the air is temperate and evenings are long, make some time to be with your loved one(s) or just with yourself.
- Relax. Time in a hammock is never time wasted. Take a nap. Have a glass of wine. Fire up the barbecue and sear some delicious food with friends. The long evenings are perfect for talk and laughter and community.
- Create. These long days allow time for writing or music or handcrafts or whatever it is you do to create and express. Do some of that; get into the Ritual State by immersing in the limbic, Present state of the artistic process.
The Wheel turns. It won’t be too long before the darkness falls early and we’re bundled up in our winter wear. Take time on the Solstice to celebrate the gifts of the magnificent, Sacred Sun.
Happy Midsummer!
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Ah, yes; getting nekkid. One of the things I miss most about being part of the Annwfn community, all those years ago, is long weekends spent unconsciously naked (except for boots and sunhats, of course, and work gloves for gardening and road repair). Probably amazing, to anyone who hasn’t experienced it, how quickly you stopped seeing each other’s nakedness, including the “naughty bits”. I think everyone should experience it, at some time in their lives. Life changing.
Anyone else love Devil’s Slide back when, playing frisbee by the pounding surf…golden all over on golden sand? Sigh.
Mark, you already know this one- in fact, you might have been there at the time- but once, when we were kicking around ideas for fundraising (for Annwfn’s maintenance), I semi-seriously suggested that we put out ads that said, “Meet a real, live naked Pagan woman!”. If anybody bit, we’d introduce him to whichever real, live naked Pagan woman was free, give him a pair of work gloves and a shovel, and she could spend an afternoon, teaching him how to do road repair on Old Fluffy. Sadly, my idea was never implemented. Brilliance is seldom recognized in its own time.
Happy Midsummer, Mark.
In Canada, June 21 is also Indigenous Peoples’ Day. (I rather wish they’d put it on a different day, as I will obviously be busy and so will Indigenous people, as they also celebrate the summer solstice.)
Happy Midsummer, Yewtree!