Summer Solstice Magic
portals and gateways to the higher Self
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Yesterday as the Earth spun silently on its axis at 1,037 mph and rocketed around the Sun at 67,000 mph, we crossed a significant threshold in the year, the summer solstice. Perhaps you noticed, or maybe you didn't.
Life as we know it is filled with artificial lights, climate-controlled air conditioning, and central heating, making it easy to become disconnected from the reality of what is happening around us.
Yet, we always have the opportunity to step outside the daily hustle and enter an enchanted vision and experience of the world that has a far-reaching and profound influence on our soul, inner life, and even our body.
I invite you to shake off the encumbrance of post-modern life and sink back into a more ancient understanding of the cycle of the seasons; this is easier than you may think. Our ancestors, from just a few hundred years ago to hundreds of thousands of years ago, have contributed to our collective experience and understanding of the seasons. That knowledge is within you, and you can access it. Once you do, you begin to remember; sometimes, in your intellectual understanding and, more importantly, in your body, a remembering will stir. You will feel, know, and live in the unstoppable and immeasurable energy of the seasons, the life of the Earth herself, as she awakens, rises, conceives, births, produces, and dies back each year. The seasonal round will become your life too.
Summer Solstice Mysteries
The solstices, both summer, and winter, are pivotal moments in the year. They mark the most primal experiences known to humans, birth and death. Yet even here, when there seems to be a stark contrast, a clear book-ending of our earthly experience, we find mystery and a bit of confusion. The Sun is reborn in the deepest, coldest darkness at the winter solstice. The glorious Sun in the sky warms our planet and causes life on Earth to thrive, yet it spends this time of rising influence in the bleakest and coldest months of the seasonal cycle. In the northern hemisphere, the Sun grows stronger from late December through June. It's not until May, Beltane, that we begin to feel that summer has arrived and life indeed has returned and can perpetuate itself. Then, just as we enter that sense of summer, we cross the threshold and pass through the Gate of Summer Solstice, the longest day that marks the beginning of the Sun's death. From this moment on, although we are experiencing what we know as summer, the Sun's influence is beginning to decline, and we have already started the slow march toward darkness.
All is not as it seems throughout the cycle of the year. In the coldest winter months on Earth, the Sun is growing more robust in the cosmic sphere. In the hottest, most oppressive summer months, at a different level of understanding, the Sun is diminishing in influence.
There is a mystery here, especially when we begin to see that in our own inner experience, our spiritual self may rise and grow stronger during dark and difficult times. When we achieve certain levels of spiritual adeptness, we might once again begin to feel a decline and become the novice again as we face the climb to the next level of spiritual understanding. The Sun, a symbol of our inner spiritual self, gives us a road map through the pattern of the solstices to help us make sense of the waveform of our soul's journey.
The Summer Solstice Gateway
Here we are, just through the Summer Solstice Gate, and we need to unravel and work with the mysteries we find ourselves in. Even though the Sun is beginning to decline, it enjoys a time of power and influence on Earth and in the cosmic sphere.
The Summer Solstice season can be a profound and powerful time for inner work. I will share with you some of the critical markers of the season and suggest ways you can engage with the energies swirling around us for the next six weeks.
When the Sun stands still from the perspective of Earth, we celebrate the summer solstice; this perceived standing still of the Sun lasts for about three days until June 24, known for many hundreds of years as St. John's Day. Our European ancestors though Christianized, wove together their earlier and older understanding of the land and the soul. They knew St. John famously declared, "I must decrease and He (The Christ) must increase." They linked this to the summer solstice, when the herb St. John's Wort, which lifts the spirits when used medicinally, blooms without fail on June 24. Here, St. John becomes the ego consciousness which must decrease and give way to the higher self or become individuated, as Jung would say. This analogy works nicely with the Sun or The Son, depending on your preference. For our European ancestors, it was likely both.
So the Summer Solstice Gate is an invitation to bring your focus to your spiritual self, the higher self, and to engage with practices and inner work that enhances and even accelerates your ascent towards higher spiritual frequencies. It's a perfect time to commit to seven or thirty days of whatever is important to you, meditation, yoga, a novena, creative practice, fasting. Anything can work, and the energy of the Summer Solstice Gate provides the right kind of active/yang energy to support these types of spiritual endeavors.
Summer Solstice ushers in a season of astronomical and astrological portals or gateways that arrive in July. As the Summer Solstice Gate closes, another opportunity presents itself.
The first portal event arrives on July 3 and lasts until July 7.
This is the moment when the Sun will align with the star Sirius. This is called the heliacal rising of Sirius. This rising coincides with the Nile River's flooding and has profoundly influenced Egyptian mythology.
Sirius is also the star closely associated with the Egyptian Goddess Isis. In fact, Sirius is thought to be the abode of the Goddess in the cosmos.
The energies of Isis are thought to be the source of most of the Earth's mother goddesses, Mother/Madonna, and Child cults that flourished across the Mediterranean in antiquity and across Europe through the Middle Ages and beyond.
During the Sirius Gateway, look to Isis as Mother, who protects, nurtures, and guides your growth. You may also be intrigued to see her as the ancestor of Mary as statuary motifs of Isis holding her divine son Horus on her lap are the imagery used as a template for statues and paintings of Mary holding her divine child on her lap. Imagery that is still used today.
Sirius is forty times brighter than our Sun and much farther away than our Sun.
Because of its brightness, Sirius has been, down through the ages, thought of as our spiritual Sun or our mystical Sun, and the energy over these four days is high vibration as we move through the Sirius Gateway.
Our actual Sun warms the Earth and provides light, warmth, and growth to everything on the planet.
Our spiritual or mystical Sun, Sirius, provides light, warmth, and growth for our inner being and souls, cultivating the development of our Higher Self or the Christ Consciousness within.
During the Sirius Gateway, when our spiritual or mystical Sun aligns with our actual Sun, expect heightened energies and high-frequency power that activates unexpected spiritual or mystical experiences.
This will be a time of vivid dreams, deep intuitive knowing, and an opportunity to connect with your Higher Self in ways you previously have not experienced.
Use this mystical and spiritual energy to focus inward and invite insight, intuition, third eye, and crown chakra experiences to enlighten your soul.
In meditation, seek your highest guides.
July is a month filled with days dedicated to Mary Magdalene, The Virgin Mary, The Madonna, and Divine Child, Mary Flower of Carmel, Rosa Mundi (the Rose of the World, The Heart of Creation, The Consuming Fire), Athena, Aphrodite, Pythias, the high priestess of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, Hatshepsut, Queen of Egypt, Mut, (the Karnak form of Isis), Isis, and Nana a form of the Goddess Kybele seated on her lion throne.
Any one of these is a powerful being that can be a guide for you.
The Cosmic Hunt is the Oldest Myth in the World
Sirius is nicknamed the "Dog Star" because it is part of the constellation Canis Major, Latin for "the greater dog."
The expression "dog days" refers to the period from July 3 through the end of August, coinciding with the heliacal rising of the Dog Star and the hottest part of the year in the northern hemisphere.
In the night sky, Sirius is following the constellation Orion, the hunter, and pursuing a rabbit (the constellation Lepus). In contrast, Orion pursues a bull, the constellation Taurus.
Long before the Epic of Gilgamesh, before the Proto-Indo Europeans, before the last mini Ice Age, before the well-known Australian aboriginal tales, before all that, our ancestors were hunter-gatherers and told stories about their lives, what affected them, to try and understand the world around them. So what is the oldest story ever told? Well, one story was so popular that it remains today, and researchers call this The Cosmic Hunt. ~ Jonathan Fielder-White
Meditation on this Cosmic Hunt is a perfect way to connect with deep ancestral memory and knowledge. It may open up a greater understanding of how what is above is also found below and offer insights into how our ancestors were connected to both realms, above and below.
These insights may help you discover how you are living in harmony with the Earth, the heavens, and the seasons or inspire you to deepen your connection to the natural world, transforming it into a significant part of your spiritual understanding and practice.
The summer season contains important mythological, mystical, and archetypal happenings. Consider engaging with them through creative, ritual, and experiential interactions.
JourneyCircles(C) SpiralPath, Moon, Night Compass, and Star Cards provide perfect surfaces to explore the mysteries of Summer Solstice.
This is an exciting time during the Wheel of the Year. I'd love to know how you find ways to come into relationship with the season, what you love about it, and what your find challenging. Who are your guides? What resonates on the mythic and archetypal front? Does the energy of the summer season affect you positively or negatively? Where are you on your journey up the spiritual mountain?
Comments are always appreciated! I read them all and try to respond to each one.
Thank you for reading Hedge Mystic and participating in this vibrant and growing community of creative, spiritual humans. You are always welcome here, appreciated, and loved.
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Discussion is encouraged. Leave your reactions and insights in the comments.
Here in Colorado on the front range, we are experiencing record-breaking amounts of rain. Plants are huge and swollen with life! I am LOVING this. My local open space feels like a jungle; and the motto “if you build it they will come,” feels right on- tons and tons of birds and wildlife. I’ve lived here 37 years and can’t recall this kind of bountiful foliage.
Usually summer is hard for me- harshly bright, too hot, too many tourists and loud. However, this summer is different- refreshing and full of luscious mystery; lots of crickets and unseasonal coolness; many cuckoo storms too.
30 days of setting a goal to...? Maybe I’ll know by tomorrow :)
I love "Mary, Mother of Bees"!!!