Midsummer Solstice!

It's the longest day of the year, hooray!

Today is variously known as the time of ripening, the golden season, Coamhain or Litha  It's a good time for divination and building bonfires to cleanse your home.  Sunflowers, St John's Wort, Marigold, Fennel, Honeysuckle and the Oak are the plants of the season.  As I look in my garden I see that the Hawthorn only just stopped flowering a week or so ago and the Oak is yet to come into flower.  Everything is so late this year.  British strawberries have only just come into season an they should have been out at Beltaine.

There is the idea that the 8 festivals mark out the life of the God - born at Yule, nursed at Imbolc, grows to adulthood at Ostara, marries the Goddess at Beltaine, fertilises the earth at Midsummer, is honoured as High King at Lughnasa, sacrifices himself for the people at Harvest and dies at Halloween.  Throughout this all the Goddess is present as and in the earth.  Neither will survive without the other.

Yesterday I baked gingerbread biscuits and this weekend I will decorate them with sun emblems.  I intended to get up this morning and do half an hour's worth of sun salutations.  That didn't happen as I slept in late.  I set up my altar decorations last night and this morning went into the garden and picked some flowers for it:

I chose honeysuckle and broom flowers, because they are in flower, and a clematis petal which had fallen off the plant.  We have a few other plants in flower but none that I felt right in picking.  We need to plant sunflowers.

I am having great difficulty in setting up decorations in this house.  I want them in the conservatory for the light but the only surface is rather small and cramped, and as you can see from the picture, rather full of other stuff.  I don't feel like there is room to put out candles or incense and there is also no room to pull up a chair alongside it.  I had lovely ideas of using it for a meditation space but don't seem to have managed that either.

One day I will feel comfortable with it, but for now, I'll just bumble along!

I will try and pick up some sunflower seeds and fruit to snack upon, and this evening I'm going to the pub to meet some friends.  It's not my traditional way of celebrating but I think it will be fun!

Have a wonderful day everybody!

Summer Solstice/Litha

(edited and re-posted to add in picture)
Today, the 21st of June, is the longest day of the year.   Where I live, the sun rises at about 4.31am and will set at about 21.22pm.  The Greenwich mean time website states that the solstice starts on the 20th June at 11.09pm, which has led to many people saying saying the Solstice is on Wednesday, but given the adjustment for British Summer time, the Solstice really starts at 12.09am on the Thursday (although I will admit I'm not quite sure what that means).  Not that it really matters when people celebrate.  I'm just pernickity.

Another name for the Solstice is Litha.  Isn't that a gorgeous word?  It's rich, full.  It rolls off the tongue.  It's thick with possibilities.  It's a good word.  I like it.

So, the longest day of the year?  Well Wednesday and Tuesday gave us beautiful, sunny weather.  the forecast for Thursday is to rain, from 9am to 11pm.  Oh well.  The Solstice is the crown of summer.  The daylight is strongest (metaphorically anyway) and we get the most light (when it's not cloudy).  As seems to be the way this year, I haven't had much time to prepare.  I made a moussaka Tuesday evening which went a bit wrong, but ended up tasted fine, and I have far too much veg in the fridge.  I went a bit overboard with the shopping on Tuesday.

Nevertheless, we will probably have leftover moussaka, with extra veg, a glass of wine or two, and I hope to be able to make honey biscuits.  Honey is always a good celebratory food.

I hope to be able to upload a picture of my decorations on Wednesday evening.  They've turned out rather nice this year. Here's a picture of the decorations.  Arty shot courtesy of my boyfriend:

For those of you in the Southern hemisphere, happy Yule, and rejoice that the days are getting longer.
For those of you in the Northern hemisphere, happy Litha and don't fret about the days getting shorter.  We've got heat and the fruits of summer to look forward to!

Merry Litha everyone. Have a great day.  :) 

Happy Solstice!

It's the summer solstice today, the longest day of the year :)  A few years ago it fell on the weekend and my friend had a solstice party, so I did see dawn in.  As I have to work today I won't have stayed up Monday night to see the dawn, and I highly doubt I'll have woken up to catch dawn (I'm writing this in advance and scheduling i)t.  But, I will enjoy how late sunset occurs, from the safety and comfort of my house.

I hope everyone has a good day today :)

(EDIT -  this was meant to post at sunrise morning.  Oops).