HAPPY SUMMER SOLSTICE 2023!
(And, Happy Winter Solstice to anyone in the Southern Hemisphere!)
Today marks the official beginning of summer in the Northern Hemisphere. Summer Solstice occurs when Earth arrives at the point in its orbit where the North Pole is at its maximum tilt toward the Sun, resulting in the longest day and shortest night of the calendar year. In the Southern Hemisphere, the today’s solstice marks the beginning for Winter and the shortest day and longest night.
As Summer arrives, we’ve moved through our 3 month journey with Spring. We’ve experienced a season of planting seeds and cultivating new growth. The light of the Sun can often illuminate what is emerging in our lives, both inwardly and outwardly. Perhaps there is something you’ve seeded that you want to celebrate or to revisit in a different way.
People in many cultures and traditions around the globe celebrate the entry to Summer and the potent energy that the Sun brings at this solstice time through ceremony, ritual, connecting with nature, and so on. The light of the Sun supports us on many levels. It’s needed for growth, and it nourishes the light within us, too. We so need that especially as we have been navigating such challenging times!
In addition to today being the longest day, it is also the time of the most Yang or expansive energy. From this point on, we will very gradually begin to move more inward, more Yin, until we reach Winter Solstice in December. For some folks, these last few weeks of the most Yang energy have been very intense emotionally; for others of us it may be even more intense just before the contraction into Winter, the most Yin or inner time. We all feel this in different ways – it’s something to explore and be curious about. It may or many not effect you.
Here are some quotes to help you tune in and celebrate Summer Solstice:
“And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.”
~ F. Scott Fitzgerald
“…This is the solstice, the still point of the sun, its cusp and midnight, the year’s threshold and unlocking, where the past lets go of and becomes the future; the place of caught breath, the door of a vanished house left ajar…”
― Margaret Atwood
“Both the Winter and the Summer Solstices are expressions of love. They show us the opposition of light and dark, expansion and contraction, that characterize our experiences in the Earth school so that we can recognize our options as we move through our lives.”
— Gary Zukav
I usually head out to my local labyrinth walk in the energy of Summer but it’s raining pretty hard today, so I will have wait for the Sun to come shine in for that ritual. So for today, I’ll welcome the Summer Solstice by lighting a candle and meditating on the light of the Sun.
I hope you’ll take some time to tune in to the Summer Solstice energy.
May the light of the Sun illuminate your heart and lift your spirit!
