Summer Solstice, Exploration & Experience
The Summer Solstice is also known as Midsummer or Litha.
The word Litha (pronounced "LIH-tha") comes from a very old document written by a Benedictine monk we know as the Venerable Bede (672 AD -735 AD). He worked at the monastery of St. Peter and its companion monastery, St. Paul, in the kingdom of Northumbria of the Angles. In his work De temporum ratione ("The Reckoning of Time"), he describes pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon customs, including their names for the months. Here, we find the name Litha in reference to this time of year. Litha means "gentle" or "navigable," and is used for the summer solstice season because the breeze is very gentle and the seas are calm and smooth for travel.
In many traditions, including much of Western tradition, the Sun is viewed as masculine and the Moon as feminine.
The Sun is equated with Apollo, Helios, Ra, and Jesus.
The Moon is La Luna, Selene, Artemis, Diana, Rhiannon, Arianrhod, and The Virgin Mary.
Yet, there are exceptions. In Norse mythology, Sunna (and in some places, she is known as Sol) is the goddess of the sun. She is a powerful archetype/image/symbol of the Shining Woman, powerful, capable, and brilliant.
Sunna had blonde hair with golden curls that looked like rays of sunshine. Like the sun, she was always kind and generous to her people, bringing light wherever she went.
Summer Solstice Offerings and Blessings
I encourage you to gather a few things like a candle, incense, or smudge stick, set up a figurine or some stones, and enact your own summer solstice ritual.
Summer Solstice : The Battle of the Oak King and The Holly King
"The summer solstice, around which the Midsummer festival was celebrated (the evening-night of June 23 and the day of the 24th), is the flip side of the winter solstice and Christmas. The sun was at its height, the day was at its longest, the season was warm, and vegetation was full and green. The season seemed magical. But this time also marked the beginning of the slow and inevitable weakening of the sun over the next half year.
According to James Frazer and Robert Graves, in the mythology of ancient Britain, the Oak King ruled when the sun was waxing, while the Holly King, who ruled over the waning sun, began his rule on the summer solstice. The Oak King withdrew to the circumpolar stars, which never disappear below the horizon, even in winter.
On the winter solstice, people celebrated the beginning of the return of the sun. Logically, we might expect one or the other of these times to be viewed negatively, but we always make our holidays into something positive. A happy thought."
~ Arthur George, Mythology Matters
The Oak
Oak trees attract lightning. This was considered hugely powerful among the ancients.
Its attraction for lightning, its size, and its longevity (oaks are known to surpass 200 years of age easily) all make the oak a powerful, life-affirming symbol.
The oak is a living legend representing all that is true, wholesome, stable, and noble. When you need stability and strength, envision the oak in your mind’s eye. Picture yourself drawing up vitality from its endless energy waves. Soon, you will find yourself sharing in its power.
The oak is considered the king of the green realm, associated with the Sun and the light half of the year.
The oak is generous with its gifts, ruling over the summer season of abundance and bounty.
Symbolic Meaning of the Oak Tree
Life
Strength
Wisdom
Nobility
Family
Loyalty
Power
Longevity
Heritage/Ancestors
Honor
The Holly
The Celtic meaning of holly is about ruling the great challenge of the winter realm with style, dignity, and honor.
Just as the oak tree is the king of the green realm and ruler of the lighter half of the year, the holly is its counterpart, ruling over the white realm (winter), the darker half of the year, and associated with the moon.
Symbolic Meanings of the Holly
beauty within dormancy
protection
vigilance
victories won
dream work
spiritual journey
cheerful disposition
good luck
Just as oaks attract lightning, holly repels it. Therefore, it was often planted around homes to protect them from lightning.
Interestingly, science has actually discovered that the holly's distinct leaf shape acts as a natural repellent for lightning energy, making the holly’s protective significance more than just lore.
~ adapted from articles by Avia Venefica
Art Invitation
Create art that uses the symbolism of trees.
Explore any part of the tree that seems significant to you right now, such as leaves, branches, trunk, roots, fruit, nuts, or seeds.
Consider creating leaf rubbings to use as collage elements.
Alternately, trace around a leaf or use leaf stencils and use them in your mixed media work.
Leaves work especially well on a Gelli plate for making prints.
Make art that incorporates twigs or branches.
Hang your art from a tree branch, inside or outside.
Spend some time outside. See if you can find an oak tree and a holly tree. Bring in some leaves or small twigs, and water the trees' roots in exchange.
Questions to Work With
How do the trees of Summer Solstice rise to meet you right now?
Are you more in tune with the symbolism of oak or holly?
Is there one symbol or meaning that stands out right now as important to explore?
Does your inner landscape resonate with the Sun and the outward, gregarious abundance of summer, or are you more drawn to (and already anticipating with longing) the inward shift to lunar rule and increasing darkness?
What is "lightening" in your life right now? Is it something energizing or something destructive?
Are you attracting or repelling lightning?
Summer Solstice Divination, gaining wisdom from the Divine
Pattern and synchronicity are fundamental to working with the potent images in Tarot or Oracle cards. Use this season of the year when the Sun is at its height to reveal what is stirring in the unconscious realms within you and in the hidden spiritual realms that act upon you.
Diving Deeper with Tarot and Oracle Card Imagery - The Nine Questions
Arrange your cards, either Tarot or Oracle, in various patterns to illuminate more of your story, helping you see a new narrative emerging. You can also gather the messages, meanings, and wisdom held there and speaking to you right now.
Create your Midsummer Altar or sacred space and use the pattern play ritual to dive deep with your Tarot deck or Oracle cards.
Pattern play is a type of Active Ritual.
For this Summer Solstice Pattern Play, begin by taking several deep breaths to ground and center. You may even want to do this outside, where you can sit on the ground or at a table and feel the earth beneath your feet and the sun on your shoulders.
Once you’re ready, shuffle your deck.
Draw or paint a sun shape on paper large enough to hold your cards. You can also lay your cards out on a yellow cloth or simply on a table or the ground if you're outside. There is no right or wrong way to do this. Make your pattern play ritual as simple or elaborate as you'd like.
Shuffle again and pull nine cards, one for each of the questions below.
Read each question out loud as you pull the corresponding card.
Study the card and see what information you can intuit from the image.
Lay the cards out in the pattern shown above as you pull them.
Trust your inner wisdom as you do a reading and interpret your cards.
You can record your insights in a written journal, but you don't have to. Just thinking through these questions or going wherever your cards lead you is powerful inner work.
The Nine Questions
What theme is emerging for you this summer?
Who are your spirit guides, allies, and helpers this summer?
What is growing rapidly in your life right now? Where will this growth be focused this summer?
Where do you need the summer fire in your life?
How can you help the intentions you planted with your Dream Seeds continue to grow & bear fruit?
Creative expression reaches its peak at Lammas on August 1st. Where should you focus your creative energy for the next six weeks?
How can you make the fullest use of your potential this season?
The Summer Solstice is the culmination of the sun’s life cycle, which began on the Winter Solstice. What is reaching culmination within you from the first half of the year?
If you do the work, what will you harvest at the end of the season?
Summer Animal Guides
Summer is aligned with the direction of the South.
I offer you this article by Shelly O’Connell, M.Div. author, artist, and speaker who engages people in the discovery of their own Sacredness and wisdom. She has an extensive background in Native American Spirituality and women’s advocacy. Connect with Shelly for additional information at www.shellyoconnell.com.
Lessons of Summer, The South
Summer holds great beauty. It is also intense. The heat combined with the swift pace of life in summer can leave you feeling out of breath and thirsty. Interestingly, the way you are feeling and experiencing the time of year is no accident. The lessons of summer happen quickly just like the rapid growth that occurs during this season. You might be hard pressed to easily identify some the teachings and gifts that you have received during this summer.
What helps me make some sense of it all are teachings from Native American Elders. I share with you my understanding of those teachings so they may help you too. The South and summer are the same in the Native teachings I received. According to the Elders each season, indeed everything related to Mother Earth, has specific attributes, gifts and lessons that we can apply to our own lives so that we may walk in balance with the whole. The teachings are rich and complex. They require living and studying them to glean the fullness contained in each season.
The summertime looks different in areas of North America. It may be lush and green, dry and hot, or humid and wet depending on your location. Regardless of location, the summer is a time when everything is amplified. Life is busy with growing and expanding. We too are growing; perhaps in awareness, in experience or in understanding.
Most of us find ourselves busy during this time of year. We are out in Nature, spending time with family and friends, taking advantage of longer days and we pack them full. Relationships are one of the prominent features in the South. In the summer you have the opportunity to experience relationships in their intensity. If you feel like things are magnified you are right! Everything is heightened at this time.
In the Native tradition in which I was taught, summer is the seat of the fire. This makes sense when you remember the intensity of summer. Fire burns and it can be destructive if given free range, however it also transforms. In Native teachings fire is sacred; it represents Spirit. That is why fire is always present in the prayer ceremonies such as sweat lodge.
Coyote is one of the totem animals of the South. Other Native people may have different animals holding totem places in the South. Coyote or his energy shows up when we are taking life too seriously. In the past, I have found myself going around in circles in the summer. It was common for me to get lost while driving. This was a coyote at play, reminding me to lighten up and laugh at myself and how serious I was making everything. One of the things he teaches is that laughter helps to break up the constriction of seriousness. It lets some light in so that the Divine can offer a solution, a wonderful gift, or some beauty.
Little mouse is the other totem animal of the South. While little mouse may not travel far, he knows intimately his immediate surroundings. He is keenly aware of what is going on around him. Little mouse is a good housekeeper. There is a place for each thing and he knows exactly where it is located.
Faith, Trust and Humility are aspects of the lessons of the South. These three traits are present within each teacher. You need each to learn to work with the fire. Coyote carries these with him in his applications to restore you to balance. He uses them indiscriminately to help you to obtain all three. Little mouse keeps them very close and is a powerful teacher of each characteristic.
Earlier, I said that the lessons of summer, the South, are fast and they can be challenging. You may feel overwhelmed or side swiped at times. Knowing these concepts may put you more at ease with the lessons of the South, summer. Understanding gives you some tools to work with during this intense time.
For example; it is possible to use the energy of the fire to transform relationships and yourself. Fire is sacred. Something as simple as a meditation on fire will bring illumination. If you are a responsible, prepared person you could have an actual fire. *Safety Note* Please educate yourself about fire safety regulations of the place you want to have a fire before you have a fire! Be mindful and careful. If you meet these criteria; sit with the fire, think about what you want transformed. Ask the Spirit of the fire to help you. See what is revealed to you.
When you are out on the land or with friends and family take notice of what it is that is growing within you and in your relationships. Think about how to bring some lightness and laughter to your life and gatherings. Call on coyote to assist you with letting go of worry or being overly serious about life.
Consider your household. Is it in order? Are you able to locate what you need at a moment’s notice? Little mouse can teach you everything about keeping an ordered house both in the physical realm and within your mind.
How are you with the three qualities of faith, trust and humility? Can you see where in your own experience the lessons of summer and the South point to each of them?
Take the teachings deeper while you have the last few days of summer and the South as teachers. Doing so prepares you to enter the next season and the lessons of fall, the West, from a more centered place. Good journeys! ~ Shelly O’Connell, M.Div.
Summer Solstice Questions for Inner Work
The Summer Solstice is a major marker on the Wheel of the Year. The sun is at its zenith and exerts its powerful influence on the earth. All things green and growing benefit from the long days filled with the sun's energizing rays. Plants, trees, and even animals are in their fullness, growing, blooming, and working to produce offspring, flowers, and fruit.
This is the time of She/He Shines. It is a time for you to reflect on your comfort or discomfort with shining.
You may love being in the spotlight, creatively and outwardly sharing your gifts and abilities. Or you may have deep-rooted stories that bring shame around being the center of attention, showing off, and outshining a sister, mother, co-worker, or friend. Perhaps your naturally vivacious, shining child self was constantly being told to tone it down, be quiet, and act ladylike.
In Norse mythology, Sunna is the goddess of the sun, a powerful archetype/image/symbol of the Shining Woman, who is powerful, capable, and brilliant.
What areas of life or parts of self allow you to shine most brightly?
Where has your light been dimmed?
What stories need to be healed to allow you to step into your power to shine?
What would be possible if you allowed yourself to shine brightly like the summer solstice sun?
If your temperament leans more toward the darkness and the lunar side of things, you might be experiencing some seasonal overwhelm. During long days filled with sunlight, activities, and summer socializing, you might not have enough time for quiet introspection, reflection, and dreaming. Consider ways that you can create space for needed rest and quiet time for thinking and musing and just being without doing. A shady spot, a walk in the woods, and a midnight swim are all inviting ways to experience relief from the solar energies of the summer solstice season.
On the full moon closest to the Summer Solstice, try looking at recent life happenings, not directly, sharply illuminated by the sun's bright light, but look with a softer moonlight gaze.
What is under the surface?
What is not obvious?
What is hidden within art and life that you want to find right now?
What more gentle response is needed?
Summer Solstice is a beautiful season filled with lush growth and heat that transforms. Its powerful energy fuels change and sustains motivation, allowing you to power through challenges to victory.
Use these materials to guide you as you live into this moment in the year and deepen your connection to the earth and your inner being.
Summer Solstice Blessings!
