The Summer Solstice
One of the four major festivals of the solar year, when the Sun reaches the quarter points on the zodiac wheel. It now
reaches the cardinal ("hinge") point of 90B0 as the Sun enters the sign of Cancer, the Crab. For the next month, the side-to-side moves of the Crab are favored in all things. This is more a time to organize of what has been gained, and plan what comes next, than it is either to start new enterprises or dissolve old ones that don't work. The Crab lives where it can jump sideways into an ocean wave when threats appear. Those who have the grace, humility and aquatic skill to do this are favored
now. The sideways motion of the Crab is also that of the Farmer, who works sideways in rows to preserve productive order.
Among the countless Summer Solstice celebrations and ceremonies: The Sonnenwende ("Sun's turning") of the Norse calendar, so named because at this point in the year, the Sun reaches its farthest northern sunset point on the horizon, and must now begin moving south, and bringing with it the hotter, more rapid movement of Summer, and everything else that the South implies. The season of husbandry begins now in bonfires that mark this day as the one when the Sun's light stays longest in the Sky.
In northern Russia, especially in St. Petersburg, this day begins the White Nights, which last for the next ten days. In this and other fire festivals that can get more raucous than most, fireworks and all, many people love the days of the Long Light because this is the best time to burn the chaff and the worry of the year gone by, and get ready to work the field under the waxing Sun, and care for children.
In the Celtic calendar, this day is called Litha, and honors the water goddess. Many European peoples also honored the Green Man, leafy symbol of nature's resurgence, counterpart to the Egyptian Osiris.
In some Native American calendars, this day begins the Month of the Flicker. Hunting is easier than it usually is.
Taoist festival honoring the Heavenly Emperor Shang-Ti and celebrating the active presence of the Tao in all things. This is the time when the masculine Yang force is at its peak, and initiates the season of fire, south and Summer.
In many ancient calendars, this is one of the year's best times for honoring Wise Women. In the Greco-Roman calendar, this was the Day of All Heras (Roman counterpart Juno, for whom this month is named), when people gather to listen to women who have achieved spiritual Union with the Great Goddess. In ancient Britain this was the Day of Cerridwen, celebrating all Wise Women.
Among the Lakota and other Native Americans of the plains, the days before the early summer Full Moon are the annual time of the Sun Dance, a festival of fasting and healing ceremonies affirming the manifestation of Takuskanskan the Creator in all things.
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S LORE
Cinquefoil, campion, lupine and foxglove nod on your doorstep; Nutka
rose, salal bells, starflower and bleeding-heart hide in the woods,
fully green now. Litha has come, longest day of the year, height of
the sun. Of old, in Europe, Litha was the height too of pagan
celebrations, the most important and widely honored of annual
festivals.
Fire, love and magick wreathe 'round this time. As on Beltaine in
Ireland, across Europe people of old leaped fires for fertility and
luck on Midsummer Day, or on the night before, Midsummer Eve,
according to Funk and Wagnall's Standard Dictionary of Folklore,
Mythology and Legend. Farmers drove their cattle through the flames or
smoke or ran with burning coals across the cattle pens. In the
Scottish Highlands, herders circumnabulated their sheep with torches
lit at the Midsummer fire.
People took burning brands around their fields also to ensure
fertility, and in Ireland threw them into gardens and potato fields.
Ashes from the fire were mixed with seeds yet to plant. In parts of
England country folk thought the apple crop would fail if they didn't
light the Midsummer fires. People relit their house fires from the
Midsummer bonfire, in celebration hurled flaming disks heavenward and
rolled flaming wheels downhill, burning circles that hailed the sun at
zenith.
Midsummer, too, was a lovers' festival. Lovers clasped hands over the
bonfire, tossed flowers across to each other, leaped the flames
together. Those who wanted lovers performed love divination. In
Scandinavia, girls laid bunches of flowers under their pillows on
Midsummer Eve to induce dreams of love and ensure them coming true. In
England, it was said if an unmarried girl fasted on Midsummer Eve and
at midnight set her table with a clean cloth, bread, cheese and ale,
then left her yard door open and waited, the boy she would marry, or
his spirit, would come in and feast with her.
Magick crowns Midsummer. Divining rods cut on this night are more
infallible, dreams more likely to come true. Dew gathered Midsummer
Eve restores sight. Fern, which confers invisibility, was said to
bloom at midnight on Midsummer Eve and is best picked then. Indeed,
any magickal plants plucked on Midsummer Eve at midnight are doubly
efficacious and keep better. You'd pick certain magickal herbs, namely
St. Johnswort, hawkweed, vervain, orpine, mullein, wormwood and
mistletoe, at midnight on Midsummer Eve or noon Midsummer Day, to use
as a charm to protect your house from fire and lightning, your family
from disease, negative witchcraft and disaster. A pagan gardener might
consider cultivating some or all of these; it's not too late to buy at
herb-oriented nurseries. Whichever of these herbs you find, a gentle snip into a cloth, </O:P>
<O:P>a spell whispered over, and you have a charm you can consecrate in the height of the
sun.
In northern Europe, the Wild Hunt was often seen on Midsummer Eve,
hallooing in the sky, in some districts led by Cernunnos. Midsummer's
Night by European tradition is a fairies' night, and a witches' night
too. Rhiannon Ryall writes in West Country Wicca that her coven,
employing rites said to be handed down for centuries in England's West
Country, would on Midsummer Eve decorate their symbols of the God and
Goddess with flowers, yellow for the God, white for the Goddess. The
coven that night would draw down the moon into their high priestess,
and at sunrise draw down the sun into their high priest. The priest
and priestess then celebrated the Great Rite, known to the coven as
the Rite of Joining or the Crossing Rite.
Some of Ryall's elders called this ritual the Ridencrux Rite. They
told how formerly in times of bad harvest or unseasonable weather, the
High Priestess on the nights between the new and full moon would go to
the nearest crossroads, wait for the first stranger traveling in the
district. About this stranger the coven had done ritual beforehand, to
ensure he embodied the God. The high priestess performed the Great
Rite with him to make the next season's sowing successful.
In the Middle Ages in Europe, traces of witchcraft and pagan
remembrances were often linked with Midsummer. In Southern Estonia,
Lutheran Church workers found a cottar's wife accepting sacrifices on
Midsummer Day, Juhan Kahk writes in Early Modern European Witchcraft:
Centres and Peripheries, edited by Bengt Ankarloo and Gustave
Henningsen. Likewise, on Midsummer Night in 1667, in Estonia's
Maarja-Magdaleena parish, peasants met at the country manor of Colonel
Griefenspeer to perform a ritual to cure illnesses.
In Denmark, writes Jens Christian V. Johansen in another Early Modern
European Witchcraft chapter, medieval witches were said to gather on
Midsummer Day, and in Ribe on Midsummer Night. Inquisitors in the
Middle Ages often said witches met on Corpus Christi, which some years
fell close to Midsummer Eve, according to Witchcraft in the Middle
Ages, by Jeffrey Burton Russell. The inquisitors explained witches
chose the date to mock a central Christian festival, but Corpus
Christi is no more important than a number of other Christian
holidays, and it falls near a day traditionally associated with pagan
worship. Coincidence? Probably not.
Anciently, pagans and witches hallowed Midsummer. Some burned for
their right to observe their rites; we need not. But we can remember
the past. In solidarity with those burned, we can collect our herbs at
midnight; we can burn our bonfires and hail the sun.
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