Summer Solstice

Summer Solstice, Litha,  Alban Hefin

June 21st

  Summer Solstice and I don’t get along.   It’s not that I have had a bad ritual experience with this solstice because I have not.   I do not feel that I have the proper schematics for this holiday. Summer Solstice is the longest day of the year.  It is the day with longest period of sunlight from sunrise to sunset.   After this day, periods of sunlight will be getting shorter, and nights will be getting longer.  It doesn’t mean that its getting any cooler, in fact, it is going to get hotter which seems to be a contradiction of the promise of longer nights.   
  Unfortunately,  there is not much lore to go on from Celtic sources regarding this high day and much of what has come through has come from Norse influences (ADF Publishing 62), and Christian influences where the high day is celebrated on  St. John’s Day eve which would be June 23rd.    Fairs, festivals, and bonfires mark the day and night. The Welsh consider the night of the summer solstice one of the three great spirit nights, and on the Isle of Man, it is tradition to pay Manannán Mac Lir the rent due in the form of bundles of reeds, grasses and herbs. Kondratiev mentions torch lit processions through the crops to bring the sun’s light to the growing plants (Kondratiev, 190) and Kirk Thomas in the June 2012 issue of Oak Leaves mentions dancing under the pole reminiscent of Maypole dancing in Northern Wales (Thomas 19).
The energy of Summer Solstice is chaotic and frantic.   It is the death of the Oak King, so often passion played or the jealous fury of Diancecht.   It is the tipping point of life and death, but offering the promise of future harvest.

   
  ADF Publishing. Our Own Druidry. Tuscon: ADF Publishing, 2009.

Kondratiev, Alexi. The Apple Branch. New York: Citadel Press, 2003.

Thomas, Kirk. "A Welsh Wheel fo the Year: Part 3." Oak Leaves Summer 2012: 19-22.