The exact moment this post published was the northern hemisphere’s 2020 Summer Solstice (and the winter solstice for everyone down-under).
Tarot cards, pagan festivals, and the ancient cultures all celebrated the summer solstice. It’s thought that Stonehenge may have been built expressly to mark the summer solstice–which was generations worth of effort for the changing of a season.
It’s serious juju, depending on who you’re listening to.
But the modern world has lost that connection with the elements. I personally mark the summer solstice with a silent sigh of relief, because now the days will start growing shorter, which means I won’t be woken by daylight at midnight (we’re quite far north, here), when I forget to draw the curtains.
Where I grew up in Australia, the solstice was invisible and unremarked. As the days don’t lengthen much and the seasons all run into each other (dry and hot in summer, a little rain and not quite so hot in winter), a solstice is meaningless in practical terms.
It was only after I moved to North America that I began to understand why the solstice was so important to our ancestors.
Twenty years plus after moving here, I’m still getting the hang of seasons and a considerably shortened growing season.
And daylight at midnight.
What about you? Do you notice the solstice race by at all? Do you have any rituals connected to it?
