Solstice Light

Solstice Light

How does the earth stop?

The sun, shine its longest firmament of light?

We reach to hold this mystery

In rituals lost to time

Re-learning ancient rites.

Oh, let us tumble down the green hill in laughter

Surrendering all we are

Speaking languages of love,

Renewing primal wisdom

Longing for it all.

Wisdom Body Notes ~June 20-30 by Samantha Cameron

As Solstice energies go, this one holds great promise of golden love and heart- connections, here to help us balance summer’s confusion, speed and high volume.  As many of you know, the Summer Solstice chart sets the Sun at the opening degree of watery, emotional Cancer, and reveals what energies will bloom and what will fade in the coming three months of sweet summer madness….and madness some of it will be.  All Solstice and Equinox are energetic gateways offering a portal for downloading celestial energy that affects DNA, and consciousness. In the northern hemisphere, we shift from winter’s yang to yin.  In the southern hemisphere, the change is from yin to yang as winter enters.   Wherever we live, the Solstice invites us to grow awareness that we are light bodies, and that these threshold times are invitations to come home to soul-self.

Meanwhile, down on the farm, we are in the high heat of over-flowering New England green that will be lit by summer’s first Full Moon, sometimes called  the ‘Strawberry Moon.’ There is another old European name for this rising, it was called the ‘Honey Moon’-whence cometh the bridal moniker of honeymoon.  However you call it, a sumptuous light fills the sky one night after the Solstice, so its energetic influence is woven into the golden fabric of Sol Sisterre.  Here, the Capricorn moon express through reality checks, professional aspirations, and an ability to harness power for the long climb.  Not what the Moon needs or wants to do.  The Sun, in its longest, brightest arc, expresses emotional needs of security and safety that are usually the Moon’s territory.  As they face-off, the Moon’s Saturn dominated need to be in charge, to be ‘an influencer’ is balanced by the Cancer Sun’s emotional character often tied to heritage, family, and ancestors. This is the first of two Capricorn Moons this summer, the second arriving July 21, making the Cancer/Capricorn face-off of great importance in our balancing acts.  Consider the face-off of heart and mind, inner and outer effort, the ‘be and do’ of you in renewing spirit and honoring your light.  When we pause and listen, the starry firmament illuminates and guides us upward.

There is reason the ancients honored the Solstice, as they worshiped nature, with great reverence for the earth, knowing that their lives depended on the crops being planted. This honoring of the sun as they planted seed was in hopes he would strengthen the harvest, offering sustenance to survive a long winter.  We often connect Solstice with Druids, the high priests of Celtic origin, as they celebrated through several days of ritual, dancing around great bonfires.  This was also true for many of the Viking and Germanic tribes.

The ancient Greeks and Romans celebrated this longest-day, and for many, it became the first day of the year, celebrating the agriculture god, Cronus, and marking one month before the Olympics took place.  The Romans honored Vesta, goddess of the earth, allowing married women this one day to enter the sacred temple of the vestal virgins and make offerings.  Many Native American tribes held midsummer rituals, with ceremonial sun dances around bonfires, or large trees.

Our ancient roots long not only for the mystery, but rituals of homage, to become present and gather with our tribe. Our unity was stronger when we had to rely on one another.  Our intuition higher as we had no technology telling us what to do.  Bodies were powerful as life depended on them.  It is not we should go back in time, but we might listen to ancient voices calling us home to our Great Mother and her care.  As world temperatures rise to dangerous levels, perhaps we shall finally turn to nurture her vigorously before we are destroyed by fires of our carelessness.

With this Solstice especially, pay attention to manifesting dreams and building how best to deploy the multitude of energies in this portal of change, which can make for wonderful conversations, juicy ideas, expanded spirit and the healing expression of EI/Emotional Intelligence, with its ‘wicked good ideas.  The potent Solstice Sun is made more complex and demanding by its quincunx to Pluto, god of power and transformation. (A quincunx is 150 degrees of separation that questions and reviews.) And by a square to Neptune, god of the sea and waters of spirituality, creativity, loss and chaos. (A square is a fisticuff face off of divergent energies.)

Is this a problem or an advantage?  You decide.  Be choosy.  When you become confused, and it will be! Slow down.  If decisions are opaque, and the light can’t come through- no matter how long or bright it is, then stop.  Listen to your wisdom body, your intuitive gut that has been handed down from the ancients. Remember that solstice comes from the Latin, ‘sol’/sun, and ‘sisterre’/to stand still.  It’s going to be a summer when we need to quiet the noise.  Consider a new practice of daily re-balancing recalibrations between the ‘Do and the Be.’  Hum a sweet tune as you step by step dance into new life,  “do be do be do beeeee do!”