What a special weekend we have coming up – with Summer Solstice this Friday followed by this year’s largest and closest Supermoon on Sunday. I have to admit I’d never actually heard of a ‘Supermoon’ before now so I’ve been scouring the internet with fascination. I skipped past the stuff trying to associate these annual events with natural disasters (no party-pooping at Summer Solstice thank you very much); instead what I read made me reflect on the magnificence of nature’s intricate cycle. As vulnerable as this little azure and green planet is, it is part of a timeless order – an order that created life and colour, light and dark and everything in between. I feel indescribably privileged to be a witness to this order of things and to be a part of the plan. With faith and appreciation of the vast, sacred intricateness, I welcome the Supermoon with her opalescent light and life enriching energies.
Shedding light on the balance
For some reason I feel persistently compelled to write about the balance between light and dark. Of course at Summer Solstice the sun reaches the highest point of it’s annual journey and we celebrate, with gratitude, the extended day with all the healing energy and positive influence that it’s light brings. So with all this extra yang energy why is the entire yin and yang symbol impressing itself so adamantly into my focus? I’ve thought about this all day and am sure I will contemplate this question a lot more over this special weekend – what I conceive so far is that it stems from the alignment of Summer Solstice and the Supermoon. At a time when we celebrate the Sun – the light, the active and protective male energy – the moon is homing in closer for our shared attention, invoking the calm of the dark night skies with female, nurturing energy and gentle acceptance.
Many of us firmly believe that humanity is at a significant transitional and evolutionary stage. Maybe this has a part to play in my unwavered attention to this proclamation of the sun and moon and the natural balance – because it really can hold some timely meaning to us. Every moment is an opportunity for growth but when such impressive cosmic alignment happens up close, playing out in the auditorium of our skies, I believe that is a message as well as an opportunity which is packing a little extra potential. So this weekend, in gratitude, I will be identify the yin and yang elements within me and I will see what happens when I try to bring them together in a more prolonged symbiosis – like the moon, shining a bright reflected light from it’s dark surface, representing both sides of the spectrum in every moment.
Shine on …
Coming back down to earth, how will you celebrate Summer Solstice? There’s something about this time of year that makes it so easy to slip into the realms of fantasy and elementals. Taking a stroll through the lush green grass or the dappled light of an old woodland, you can almost see the Green Man in the leaves and hear the fanfare somewhere amidst the chirping blackbirds, the tapping of the woodpeckers and humming of the bees … announcing the joining of the Green Man and the Green Maiden, or maybe the dual of the Oak King and Holly King. Ah and the Solstice Fire is a powerful ceremony – whether it is built as a community, warming the hands and souls of shared company, crackling to the sound of a slapped drum and voices singing and laughing … or alight in your home hearth or your favourite lantern in a quiet, private ceremony. And the moon of course is best celebrated by getting out there and wearing it on your skin – alive and sparkling in a world of silver enchantment. Have you ever seen elderflower glow in the moonlight? I don’t know how the weather will be on the weekend and sometimes we don’t get to pay homage the way we’d like for whatever reason but I know we can trust the balancing energy of the Sun and Moon to reach us … we just let it come. Nature has it’s perfect design for life even when it’s obscured by clouds.
Solstice Fire Chant
Jehanne Mehta is enticing with her words; I get happily lost in her poetry. As a kind offering she is sharing with us the words to her processional chant, for the lighting of the midsummer fire. I’ve also added her ‘Solstice’ poem because it is too lovely to leave out.
SUNFIRE
by Jehanne Mehta
To light the sunfire in this land We carry a torch, we carry a brand. To kindle the sunfire in all hearts We offer our song we offer our dance. When swirling flames with red tongues fly And grey smoke billows to the sky, What holds us back shall burn away In the singing sunfire of midsummers day
Solstice
by Jehanne 05.06.2011
What do we want of this summer solstice, this high point of the sun, this sun that opens us to out there, where the sky is widest, blue, swept clean by the gyring flight of swifts, this sun that lets us out of the narrow rib cage, the constricting bone, so the heart overflows like poppies, pimpernel and the abundant clusters of sweet lime flowers? What do we want of this high sun, but warmth, but a light to ignite the only flame worth the candle, in the thrash of the hard, the drag of this down, misshapening dimension, the only flame to take us over and through, right into our own central sun? You said it: love, the fire of love.One last one
I submerge myself in literature at Midsummer … I mean, what’s Solstice without a little dream weaving and make believing? Please excuse me if I’m a little overzealous but here is one last gift of words, from Kenneth Graham.
Wind in the Willows
(Chapter 7, ‘Piper at the Gates of Dawn’, set on Midsummer’s dawn)
‘In silence they landed, and pushed through the blossom and scented herbage and undergrowth that led up to the level ground, till they stood on a little lawn of a marvellous green, set round with Nature’s own orchard-trees— crab-apple, wild cherry, and sloe.
‘This is the place of my song-dream, the place the music played to me,’ whispered the Rat, as if in a trance. ‘Here, in this holy place, here if anywhere, surely we shall find Him!’
Then suddenly the Mole felt a great Awe fall upon him, an awe that turned his muscles to water, bowed his head, and rooted his feet to the ground. It was no panic terror— indeed he felt wonderfully at peace and happy— but it was an awe that smote and held him and, without seeing, he knew it could only mean that some august Presence was very, very near.’
One love and Solstice blessings,
Louisa
