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Celebrated the first day of Summer
21 June 2011
(Each year this date changes, consult your almanac to find the date for the
current year)
ALSO CALLED:
St. John's Day
Midsummer
Alban Hefin
Litha
Summer Solstice marks the longest day of
the year when the Sun is at it's highest point.
For Witches and Pagans, this
sacred day symbolizes the power of the sun which marks an important turning
point on the Great Solar Wheel of the Year, for after the Solstice of Summer,
the days grow visibly shorter.
Midsummer is both a fire festival and a water festival, the fire being the
God-aspect and the water the Goddess-aspect.
In certain Wiccan traditions, the Summer
Solstice symbolizes the end of the reign of the waxing year's Oak-King who is
now replaced by his successor, the Holly-King of the waning year.
(The Holly-King will rule until the Winter
Sabbat of Yule, the shortest day of the year.)
The Sun-God significance of the Midsummer Sabbat
is very clear.
At the Summer Solstice, he is at his highest and brightest,
and his day is at its longest.
Witches, naturally and rightly, greet and
honor him at the peak of his annual cycle, invoking him to "put to flight the
powers of darkness" and to bring fertility to the land.
Midsummer is perhaps
the most celebratory of the Festivals, in the sense that it rejoices in the full
flood of the year's abundance, the height of light and warmth.
The Summer Solstice is the traditional time
when Witches harvest magickal herbs for spells and potions, for it is believed
that the power of herbs are strongest on this day.
It is the ideal time for
divinations, healing rituals, and the cutting of divining rods and wands.
All forms of magick
(especially love-magick) are also extremely potent on Summer Solstice Eve,
and it is believed that whatever is dreamt of on this night will come true
for the dreamer.
For modern witches, fire is a central feature of the Midsummer Sabbat as it is of Beltane.
But since the cauldron (which on May Eve holds the Beltane fire) is used at Midsummer for the water with which the High Priestess sprinkles her coven, it is suggested to have twin bonfires or twin candles for the Midsummer rite.
One Midsummer tradition may be of interest
to any woman who is anxious to conceive and who owns a vegetable garden.
She
should walk through it naked on Midsummer Eve and also pluck some St. John's
Wort, if there is any.
This
is a mirror-image of the ancient and widespread fertility rite in which women
walked naked round the fields to ensure and abundant harvest, often emphasizing
their sympathetic magick by riding broomsticks.
TRADITIONAL PAGAN FOODS:
Fresh Vegetables
Summer fruits
Pumpernickel bread
Ale
Mead
INCENSE:
Frankincense
Lemon
Myrrh
Pine
Rose
Wisteria
CANDLE COLORS:
Red
White
Yellow
Blue
Green
GEMSTONES:
All green gemstones
Emerald
Jade
Samhain
/
Yule
/
Imbolg
/
Ostara
Beltane
/
Summer
Solstice /
Lugnassadh
/
Autumn
Equinox
Last here: 20 June 2010
17 June 2000