Spirituality Of The Summer Solstice (Podcast Episode 135)

The Summer Solstice (also known as Litha or Midsummer) is the longest day and shortest night of the year.

Celebrated around june 21, the Summer Solstice marks the end of Spring and the beginning of the Summer season.

It’s called “Midsummer” because astronomically, it’s the middle point of the half of the year when the days are longer than the nights.

Watch, listen or read on to discover how to harness the magick of the Summer Solstice season to experience more fulfillment this season:

Interestingly, even though the Sun is out for the longest amount of time this week, in many parts of the Northern Hemisphere, the weather is only just starting to feel like true “Summer.” The days will continue to grow warmer but will also already begin to grow shorter after this checkpoint. Therefore it has the vibe of a high energy celebreation, while also having a
bittersweet undertone.

It’s a time to be very present in the moment and to give oneself permission to RELAX.

The spirit of nature is nearing its peak of life force energy before the heat starts to dry everything out. For many of us, the weather is at it’s most comfortable this time of year. It’s time to cherish the moment and relax into the nurturing energy of nature… to simply BE.

Summer Solstice Poem By Afura "Magick Of The Moment" — Summer Solstice Poem By Afura “Magick Of The Moment”

My favorite themes to focus on in my practice this season are the Present Moment, the Inner Child and “Tween-Times.”

The Summer Solstice And The Magick Of The Moment

The Summer Solstice is a time when nature is usually very forgiving.

It’s finally easy to relax into the open arms of Mother Nature and be nurtured effortlessly.

It’s moments like this, when we’re at peace outdoors in nature, that it’s easiest to attune ourselves fully to the Present Moment. This can be a deeply connected and “magickal” time. When we’re fully immersed in the peace, joy, and simplicity of the moment, that’s when time seems to slow down or stand still, giving full attention to the heart-centered part of the experience. The Magick of the Moment can be evoked intentionally, but it often occurs spontaneously in these gentle days of Summer.

Some questions to ask yourself around the theme of the Magick Of The Moment:

How can I commit to giving myself the time and space to be at peace in nature?
Which Midsummer activities am I prioritizing in my schedule for this time of year?

This Spring Equinox, I made the decision to really lean into gardening as much as possible this growing season. And so far, so good!

I’m sitting in my garden right now, and although it was a warm, sunny day earlier, just at the moment that I sat down, the sky opened up and it started to pour. For most of the Spring season, I was admittedly lamenting the fact that my balcony has is covered by a large awning, because it blocks out all afternoon and evening sun from my plants. But now that summer weather is beginning to set in, I’m remembering just how much of a blessing the awning really is. On days like today, it both makes it possible to tend to my garden in the afternoon without getting roasted by the sun… And it allows me to sit outdoors in the open air when it’s thick with the smell of rain.

I’ve successfully created a little bit of a nature haven for myself here, even in spite of it facing a high traffic area and there now being children next door who are almost always out making a lot of noise. It was actually quite lucky that for the first summer that I lived here, the two patios opposite mine were almost completely unused. At that time, if the downstairs neighbors weren’t making noise on their porch below me, the only potential distraction from nature was the street and sidewalk traffic, which has tended to be easier for me to tune out.

I knew going into this year that it wouldn’t be as quiet or private. But rather than letting that discourage me from connecting to Mother Earth, I just made up my mind to balance the elements in a much more strategic way… And the resources I’ve needed have manifested almost effortlessly so far!

I decided early on this spring that if I wanted a “quiet” moment with nature any time of day, I would utilize any means necessary to curate a tranquil environment for myself, regardless of any outside circumstances. I started by getting very friendly with my earbuds and having a variety of meditative mood-evoking playlists ready.

My other desire was to create a sort of “hedge” of plants around the two sides of my balcony that are exposed to traffic and neighbors. My initial thought was to just plant tall growing plants and hope for the best, but I recall from earlier gardening experiments that even the plants that are often listed in blogs as “privacy” plants usually take a good while to get to full size (like sunflowers, for example). So I instead set the intention to acquire some plant stands and / or raised beds to both provide a layer of privacy and better utilize the space for planting.

Some weeks ago, I happened upon a lightweight wooden shelf perfect for one of the sides. I used it to get the garden started off with cold tolerant potted plants in late spring. And then Matthias offered to build me a box bed for larger food crops. And thankfully, he’d stopped me from throwing out my old battered coffee table which I’d left outside for a year… Because it turned out the legs from the table brought the raised bed to just the perfect height.

I even decided to try something totally outside of my normal color scheme and paint my gardening containers green – with the intention of emphasizing the theme of the Earth element as much as possible. At first, painting everything green felt really strange since it was so different from any of the colors inside my home. But after a little while of getting used to it, it’s really started growing on me!

I also recently designed a green faerie themed junk journal for the shop, and the color felt very “rich” and “abundant” to myself and everyone else who saw it for the short time it was in my possession. It sold within an hour of being listed, so someone else must have agreed!

This is a prime example of how working with the Elements in one area of your life can spill over and create rippling positive effects in other areas as well. Working with the actual Earth element in it’s most basic form in the garden has also inspired me in ways that’s leading to an easier time attracting money and resources… not to mention a more stable and grounded emotional/spiritual state.

For me, the Summer Solstice season is about connecting (or re-connecting) to the Earth element (or all of the Elements, really) in more and more aligned ways. This year, my desire is to grow more of a green thumb as well as up-level my eco-friendly living habits in as many ways as possible.

The Summer Solstice And The Inner Child

The childhood memory that comes to mind for me isn’t one specific memory so much as a chain of memories. I’m thinking of the many times as a child and teenager when I gathered objects to evoke a particular mood and curated a magical scene. One that’s easy to remember is the creative film I made in my teens titled, “A Compilation Of Modern Quaint Nostalgics.” I didn’t realize it at the time, but what I was essentially doing was crafting altars to honor and celebrate my sacred creativity and inspiration.

This became apparent when this practice seamlessly found it’s way into my early days as a witchy business owner when I first began designing scenes for product photo shoots for my journals. When I first dreamed up the idea for my first handcrafted grimoire diary, I had access to a large yard, so the natural thing to do was utilize the space for epic photography setups.

Fairy tale themed grimoire book of shadows journal

Honestly, I do believe part of the reason my journal shop took off was because of the enchanting mood I was able to evoke with those outdoor photo shoots… Because I myself was so inspired in that outdoor environment, it effortlessly translated into images that took the viewer to a magickal place, perhaps engaging their own Inner Child.

And that’s exactly the kind of vibe I intend to re-evoke into my life again on a more consistent basis. Part of my reason for prioritizing creating a safe space for myself on my balcony now is that I desire to have that creative connection with the outdoors again… even if it’s just on a slab of floating concrete hanging above a busy street.

In fact, this was the exact notion that went into the shoot I did for my recently sold green faerie junk journal, and I’m sure that’s part of why it sold so quickly. So perhaps my intention this summer is to get into that creative Inner Child-like energy as often as possible, and not forget to include my career projects in that intention… Afterall, long before I ever got the idea that it was my job to fix all the problems of the world by learning and teaching shadow work, self development and manifestation, I always knew my purpose was to inspire people with my natural sense of childlike magick, inspiration, art and storytelling.

This is why in the past year I’ve pivoted from focusing mainly on coaching and serious educational content to more junk journaling and creative cinematography. Because I’ve come back home to myself and remembered that at the end of the day, the whole point of starting on a mindfulness journey in the first place was to create the space to experience more joy in life. And rather than telling the world about it, I’ve begun to let my Inner Child lead again and show the power of magick through my most authentic form of expression – art.

The Summer Solstice And Tween Times

Many will agree that these Magick of the Moment experiences are often the times when we will feel the presence of our Inner Child.

Some relate this childlike sense of wonder with Faerie energery, or with being visited by the Muses.

For many, these types of purely inspirational moments often occur during “tween-times.”
Tween-times are natural occurrences in which consciousness is shifting to transition from one chapter into the next. The duality of the transition triggers us into a hyper-aware state, and these tend to be some of our most vivid and enchanting memories for the rest of our lives!

All of the checkpoints on the Wheel of the Year are tween-times, in a sense, and this one is a really potent one.

Another example of a magickal tween-time is a beautiful sunset. The Summer Solstice is a tween-time in the sense that it is the pause between the days of waxing and waning sunlight.

Some questions to ask yourself around the theme of “tween-times”:

What does this term “tween-time” mean to me?

What are examples of tween-times I remember in my life?

Interestingly, when I think about it, I recall that my entire current life and career is based on what started as a natural fascination with tween-times!

Long before calling myself a “witch” or knowing anything at all about neopaganism or the Wheel Of The Year, my childhood self was absolutely obsessed with the transient moments in nature. Some of my earliest memories of the outdoors are related to things like the first yellow leaf of Autumn, the first snowflake of Winter, the first blossoms of Spring, and the magical sunsets of Summer.

I always felt myself being drawn to any media in which nature, elements and seasons were depicted as magical… And because the religion I grew up in didn’t celebrate Christmas or Halloween or any of the other pop culture seasonal holidays, I had to get my fix of these types of things in somewhat more obscure ways.

I recall seeing the small printed words “Autumn Equinox,” and “Winter Solstice” on wall calendars, and finding myself counting down the days until the seasonal transitions arrived… feeling somehow that they were what I would now call “sacred.”

One story that inspired me so much as a child was “Catkin” by Antonia Barber. It was featured in an American Girl magazine in the 90’s, and I loved it so much that I’ve saved the pages even until today, long after most of my other childhood belongings are gone.

Obviously there was a cat and fairytale vibes involved, so I had to love it… But something that fascinated me about it was that it incorporated the transition of seasons in it’s enchanting story line. In the story it says of the Little People who stole the child and left a changling in it’s place:

“When the nights grow long under the green hill, they grow restless and long for new company… There was a great banquet to mark the turning of the year, when the days begin to lengthen and the nights grow shorter. After the feasting, the riddles began…”

summer solstice reading Catkin and The Spiderwick Chronicles

This piqued my interest, and from then on, any mention of solstices and equinoxes amused me.

So naturally, in my early teens when my little sister brought home The Spiderwick Chronicles from her friend’s house, I made up my mind that I was not too old for it! The both of us always loved the faerie energy evoked by that story, and after reading it, those Autumn sunsets when leaves seem to flutter to the ground in slow motion became all the more celebratory for us.

We also discovered the Hallmark / Artisan film adaptation of The Snow Queen, which even further emphasized the importance of seasons, solstices and equinoxes, solidifying it in my mind that these were magickal times.

I recall one New Year’s eve in my very early teens when I decided to forgo my older sister’s NYE party downstairs in favor of creating what I would now call an altar on my bedside table. Even though I knew even then that New Year’s Eve was a manmade holiday, I still sensed that it was a transitional time of season. And I decided it was important to light a candle while writing in my diary about what I was leaving behind in the old year and what I was calling in for the new year.

And so in due course, in my 20s when I was finally free to explore other spiritual paths, I circled back around to wondering what other cultures had gleaned about such things as solstices and equinoxes. And when I did discover the Wheel Of The Year, I was hooked right then and there, and the rest is history.

There’s just something so deeply enchanting and natural about recognizing how the hands of the great cosmic clock move, and ritualizing it in some meaningful way as each year passes. It both shows us the eternal continuity of consciousness, while also offering us periodic opportunities to mark the beginnings and ends of cycles in our development. It gives us the ability to close old doors behind us and step through new ones, all while inviting us to utilize traditions, rites and rituals to help us remember and appreciate where we’ve been and how far we’ve come.

And it isn’t just seasonal checkpoints that have this “tween time” energy. My sister and I always made some sort of tradition out of drinking tea, listening to our favorite music, reading our favorite stories and processing our journeys on the last night before a big change – like becoming a teenager, moving house or leaving for college. All of these simple transient moments have the power to become intention-setting rituals for the savoring of the present moment, and celebrations of endings and begginings.

So, what are your favorite things about the Summer Solstice season?

Are you planning to journal on the the topics from this post?

If so, I would love to invite you to join me for a seasonal journaling adventure this summer!

Here are two different ways:

First, you can download the printable PDF files of the grimoire pages you saw in this post from the Writing Witch Shop. Your download will include all of the Summer Solstice information discussed in this post as well as journal prompts and space to write about your relationship with the season.

You also get access to four different printing options – color and black and white (the black and white version is great for saving on ink and getting to decorate the pages yourself) – And full page binder sheets and a smaller folded book template for junk journaling. You get to print these out as many times as you want for your own personal use, so if you want to do binder pages in color this year for an instant option, you can… And then next year, if you decide you want to get more crafty with your grimoire, you can print the junk journal template versions. Don’t feel like printing? You can also order pre-printed copies here.

Doing these same journal prompts each year in different journals or as binder refills has helped me and my Writing Witch community members to up-level our capacity to experience fulfillment each year… And I want you to get to experience this magick too!

Are you also looking to connect with myself and other magickal mavens as you embody your most fulfilled version of yourself this season?

If so, I’d love to invite you to join our Early Summer Seasonal Living Challenge!

This challenge is for the Grimoire Goodies tier, Magickal Mavens tier and the Writing Witch Subscription Box tiers on Patreon.

Every Wednesday for the five weeks around Litha, I’ll be posting a prompt to help you maximize your fulfillment by harnessing the themes of the sabbat.

All you need to do to participate is be aware that…

The challenge begins on the first Wednesday in June when the first post goes live. There will be one challenge post per week for five weeks leading up to the final post which will come out in early July.

Challenge prompts will always be posted on Wednesday mornings.

If you need to join late, you can catch up on the previous posts at your own pace.

If you’re not already an eligible patron, I invite you to sign up now! I’m so excited to get to know you better as we share our experiences with the seasons! I hope to see you there!

Either way, have an amazing Summer Solstice!

Thank you for being your magickal self.

Until next time, blessed be.