Green gold solstice season
Happy Summer Solstice - Some solstice prompts for you...
Today is the eve of Midsummer - Summer Solstice, occurring this year on Saturday 21st June at 3:42 am.
The celestial magic of the solstice always stirs something within me, that sense of closeness and connection with the universe, the feeling of being connected to something awesome and massive. It reminds me yet again of how we’re all part of an interconnected weave. For me, it signifies shift, a change in direction and a season to re-new.
Midsummer's eve is a time to gather and celebrate light, a time of faeries and folklore. The magic aperture is opening.
I love how the universe likes to remind us humans, just how humble we are. The sun light, the 4.5 - 5 billion years old star in our solar system which all other planets orbit. Fair enough, we humans have learnt a lot over the past 200 years or so. We know our sun is a star, we’ve deduced through very sophisticated telescopes and trigonometry how far away stars are, and have been able to figure out through properties of light what stars are even made of.
We might say we know more now than our ancestors who built Newgrange, the same ancestors who lived in deep relationship with the land, guided by firelight, the sun, and the moon. But they understood something we’re only beginning to remember: that all life depends on the sun. They knew its rising meant survival, growth, renewal. That without its light, nothing could exist. It’s why they built monuments across the globe to honour it. That great rhythm that still beats above and beneath all we do.
It always amazes me a little (in the modern distracting world I live in) how the sun still captivates me a bit. Along with other great celestial events, it stirs someplace that seems to remember. A knowing beyond words, as if some thread of ancestral memory is still woven into my bones, still responding to the turning of the sky.
The energy during these transitions is powerful, like being swept up by a bullet train, fast-tracked and unstoppable. Tomorrow, at the Solstice, the sun reaches its peak, radiant, potent, and alive with power. The earth beneath me feels full and fertile, brimming with quiet strength and promise.
I like to find balance between:
The fiery, fearless heat of the sun and the drive to act, create, and get things done
and…
The gentle, compassionate pull of water, cooling, steady, and attuned to growth that unfolds in its own time.
Either way, during these heady days of green gold Solstice, I tune in. I notice more. I soften into the rhythm of the light, and strive to be guided by its flow.