3 ways to understand the Summer Solstice locally

How do you celebrate the Summer Solstice? What rituals do you embrace in your practice? Are your Solstice celebrations linked to a mythological narrative? Folk customs? Astrological influences?

If you’re like me, the answer is yes to all of the above!

The Solstice Culturally

Much of Summer Solstice lore focuses on the honey moon stage of life that this season represents. We’ve planted the crops and now we rest while we wait for the harvest to come. While we still have work to do, the work is less. We have time to gather, dance, bask in the sun, bath in the waters, and generally just celebrate the longer days. For most of us, in my location at least, this tide is one of well earned joy. [Of course, different locations will have a different relationship with the full sun at this time of year]. But for many of us in the Great White North, we look forward to this season year round.

In fact, here in Quebec, this season is also marked by St-Jean festivities. St-Jean (or St John) is linked to French Catholic traditions (music, water, bonfires) and Quebec nationalism. Keep that nationalism in mind. I think it’s important for us local witches!

The Solstice in Divination

In tarot, this season is associated with the 2 of cups, which is such a beautiful card. Of all the tarot cards that deal with love, this really is the loveliest representation of romantic union and love. With this type of link, is it really any surprise that so many opt to get married in this season?

In astrology, we generally associate the first decan of Cancer with the Moon or Venus (it depends on the system). This time is really the perfect union of sun and moon: light and reflected light; fire and water; energy and love. This season is as much about what we love and what we give as it is about what we see in the world and in ourselves.

Sovereignty and the Solstice

From a generalized Wiccan perspective, the Summer Solstice is a celebration of the Solar deity taking up sovereignty. They recognize that they have a responsibility not only to themself, but to the land and its people. They illuminate every corner, which can be both good and bad depending on the shadows we need.

Even though the heat of the sun is most pronounced at this time of the year, we are actually closer to the sun at the Winter Solstice. A good reminder that sometimes we see more closely from a distance.

In this moment, at peak strength, when the sun is at its farthest to us, the days are longest and the fires burn brightest, the tide is turning. We see the beginning of the fall. Of the harvest. Though this is a time of delight, joy, and energy – it is also a moment when the tide shifts and we must accept that nothing ever stays the same. Change is the game. What will we leave behind? Power for power’s sake or a legacy that helps the next generation thrive?

The Lunar deity is there to remind us that love is the only way forward in this time. To temper our fires with the waters of life. The light is there to help us appreciate and celebrate this season of love. To see clearly and cherish the joys of today.

Local Solstice Links

For us local Quebec witches who can’t help but see St-Jean in our Solstice, sovereignty is especially pertinent as a theme for the season. Quebec celebrates its national holiday on the 24th with music, parties, and general merriment. It is a call to celebrate community in very distinctly Quebecois ways. We might not be collecting waters like we did in the past, but the traditions still linger in other ways. When we consider leadership in the season, St-Jean becomes another way to layer meaning into this tide.

But we also have to recognize that this is strawberry season. Haudenosaunee teachings remind us that the strawberry represents the heart. So here too we see links between the solar tide and love; the need for balance and the cycle of life. It’s really amazing to realize how many layers of meaning we can find in the practice.

Ultimately, for me this sabbat is a clarion call to live fully and responsibly.

There are so many ways to interpret the season. How we do is highly individualistic, varying from practitioner to practitioner. That’s ok! In fact, maybe that’s the beauty of not being a dogmatic tradition.