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The Living is Easy
It’s summer, with Midsummer just a few days away. Long days full of Sun, sometimes hot but where I am, often buffered by the cooling ocean air to create perfect days with warm evenings. I just moved inside from sitting naked on my patio, which is a seasonal pleasure. I also cut back the wisteria covering our back fence, which occasionally threatens to tear our house apart with its clinging, constricting vines, and watered all the plants in pots and half-barrels that make the place a lush oasis. Being-Outside-Naked Season is something I look forward to every year. I love the Sun and air on my skin, and the feeling…
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Midsummer 2020
In the Northern Hemisphere, the long days are upon us*! These are the days of Midsummer. Click here for all the previous posts about this Sabbath. To me, Midsummer is the celebration of the prime of life–of robust, confident adulthood (rather than the urgent young adulthood of May Day), and, in the agricultural cycle, of relaxation and ease between the earlier plowing, sowing and planting and the later harvest Sabbaths. Many Midsummers I have celebrated have been times to deliberately, conscientiously goof off: to relax, eat and socialize with friends. Perhaps to go to the beach, which is a fine Midsummer tradition. But this is the (first?) year of COVID-19.…
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A Solar Reflection
It’s the day after Midsummer—at least, here in the Northern Hemisphere—and it’s hot and sunny, as one would expect. Meanwhile, the chaos weather of global climate change goes on: Banff had 25 cm of snow last night. I had a quiet Midsummer: set out my Sun Broom to soak up the sun and wove some additional lengths of wild rye into it; contemplated my Focus for awhile. The day became very hot and we mostly lay about under a fan with our clothes off. These are the longest days of the year, and those many hours of daylight bring a sense of possibility with them: so much time to do…
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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…
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The Sun Broom—A Ritual Tool
The Sun broom is both a Midsummer ritual and a tool you can use ritually around the year. You will need: A piece of tree branch for a handle. Don’t hurt a tree; go for a hike and find something that has already fallen to the ground. Thin ribbon or strong twine for binding grasses to the handle. A bunch of long strands of dry grass. I harvest the grass at the height of the day on Midsummer—the peak of the power of the Sun in the Northern Hemisphere. In my particular area, wild oats grow very tall, so I use those, mostly. I bind them to the handle with…
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Summer
Though weather varies widely across the planet, of course, the traditional meaning of May Day in Europe was “the beginning of Summer”. Thus, the summer solstice was termed “Midsummer”, et cetera. Here in the U.S. the unofficial beginning of summer is a little later, with the passage of Memorial Day at the end of May. Here in the Mediterranean climate of coastal northern California, our hills are now turning from green to gold as the grasses go to seed and turn tawny. It is the signal that summer has truly arrived, and we have days to match: 70s and low 80s, not quite hot enough yet to provoke the fog…
