“In summer, the song sings itself.” - William Carlos Williams

Today (and last night) is the celebration of the Summer Solstice*, also known as Midsummer, or Litha. It is at this time that the Northern Hemisphere is tilted closest to the sun (the opposite being true for our friends in the Southern Hemisphere who are celebrating the Winter Solstice). It is a time of fertility and celebration: bonfires, maypoles, dancing, and outdoor festivals have been traditional during this time for most of human history. In some modern Pagan faiths it is believed that this holiday represents the highest ascendancy of masculine divinity.

Here are some recent quotes on this day from the press, along with some words from those who celebrate the Summer Solstice as a holiday.

“Once, humans were intimate with the cycles of nature, and never more than on the summer solstice. Vestiges of such awareness survive in White Nights and Midnight Sun festivals in far northern climes, and in neo-pagan adaptations of Midsummer celebrations, but contemporary people take little notice of the sun reaching its far point on the horizon. Tomorrow is the longest day of the year, the official start of the summer season, the fullest of light — yet we are apt to miss this phenomenon of Earth’s axial tilt, as we miss so much of what the natural world does in our surrounds.” - James Carroll, The Boston Globe

“Legends describe the solstice as a time when the doors to enchanted castles and the underworld were cast open and mortals could mingle with fairies and imprisoned princesses and explore hidden caverns. Shakespeare set his silly and brilliant comedy on this night, depicting the collision of three very different worlds in a magic forest where fairies work romantic mischief on sleeping couples, while bad actors rehearse a Roman play about doomed lovers. The youth of today may not pause to think that they are reenacting ancient midsummer celebrations or mating rituals when they get debaucherous at the many music festivals that kick off around the solstice, but the primal desire to be outside dancing and carousing late into the night is irrepressible at this time of year.” - Megan Cytron, Salon.com

“Midsommar, the Swedish celebration of summer solstice, is a pretty easy holiday to love — perhaps because it’s more of a party than a holiday. This year, the solstice itself falls on June 21. Swedes, like many in Europe, have celebrated the longest day of the year since pagan times. And with good reason: In a northern land where the sun barely rises during the dark, snowy winter, summer is a time to celebrate the golden outdoors. It’s a time to sing and dance (ideally around a flower-studded maypole or frighteningly large bonfire), eat the best of the summer crops, and toss back shots of bracingly strong alcohol.” - Deena Prichep, NPR

But for some, midsummer is about more than glorious dawns, for pagans it is a very significant date. Steve Ludford of the Pagan Federation explained: “In essence it is a time to celebrate the strength of the sun, which is the masculine element in paganism, and obviously in midsummer the sun is at its strongest.” “The word solstice actually comes from the Latin meaning to stand still, because at midsummer the sun appears to stand still in its path.” Although thousands of pagans will head to Wiltshire to celebrate the occasion, Chair of the Druid Network Phil Ryder believes most will head to our own monuments to mark the occasion “Most druids would rather avoid Stonehenge like the plague. The land where we reside is most important to us, so for that reason, people are most likely to navigate towards the ancient sites near them. In many cases the ancestors built the stone circles and burial cairns oriented towards the solstice which makes them a good place to see the dawn and celebrate.” - Western Telegraph

“While it heralds the sun’s waning, Litha is not about light or dark winning victories over each other, even temporarily, or about one end of the polarity between ice and fire being the “good” one; it’s about the constant interplay in the dance that is the turning of the Wheel of the Year. That cooperation and interaction are the real story of destruction averted, and not just averted, but transformed into the ongoing process of re-creation. Now that’s something to celebrate.” - Literata, The Slacktiverse

A blessed Midsummer to you all!

* Technically speaking, the 2011 Summer Solstice occurs at 17:16 on June 21st. Please check your local time-zone for accurate Solstice timing.

The John the Baptist story seems to be an echo of a much older, pagan story – that of Oannes, the fish-headed initiator god of the Babylonians. Nightly, Oannes would rise from the sea and, like other “communicator” gods Djehuti (“Thoth”), Hermes, Wotan, would teach arts, language and sciences. These two figures, Oannes and John the Baptist, share not only a name, but a job description (initiation by water). In the Christian story, it is Jesus who plays the “communicator god” role, but even in the early second century the gospels acknowledge;

“Now the people were filled with expectation, and all were asking in their hearts whether John might be the Messiah”

In fact many of the first “Christians” in the Middle East were baptized not in the name of Jesus, but in the name of John/Oannes.

There are more pagan eddies around the JBap figure: he is beheaded, and his iconography is centralized around the severed head. This would seem to resonate with various Middle Eastern and Celtic traditions around the veneration of the decapitated head, from Veronicas to the head of Bran the Blessed. The Knights Templar, too, were thought to worship a severed head, and ascribed to it the same properties as the Holy Grail. It’s worth noting that the word “grail” comes from the Latin word for “shallow serving dish” (not a cup), and it is in just such a platter that the head of John the Baptist is traditionally depicted (and to make matters dizzying, if John were the Messiah, then such a vessel certainly did contain the “blood of Christ”).

There is another John/Oannes in the Christian pantheon; John the Evangelist, whose feast is at Midwinter, setting up a fairly tidy dyad of the Holly King and Oak King so detailed in Robert Grave’s The White Goddess.

To be clear, I’m not talking about history here, but myth: how these stories weave and dance together, how they flirt with each other across neighbouring faiths and cultures and are reinterpreted and illustrated using familiar motifs. The perceived firewall between Paganism and Christianity is a recent revisionism, and the stories that make up western culture are as a messy, confused, juicy and magical as any other human endeavour.

“The quality of life, which in the ardor of spring was personal and sexual, becomes social in midsummer” - Henry Beston

Today (and last night) is the celebration of the Summer Solstice*, also known as Midsummer, or Litha. It is at this time that the Northern Hemisphere is tilted closest to the sun (the opposite being true for our friends in the Southern Hemisphere who are celebrating the Winter Solstice). It is a time of fertility and celebration: bonfires, maypoles, dancing, and outdoor festivals have been traditional during this time for most of human history. In some modern Pagan faiths it is believed that this holiday represents the highest ascendancy of masculine divinity.

Druids at Stonehenge on the Summer Solstice

Here are some recent quotes on this day from the press, along with some words from those who celebrate the Summer Solstice as a holiday.

“Latvia (in Northern Europe, across the Baltic Sea from Sweden) may be one of the smallest European Union countries with 2.3 million people, but our celebrations are huge!  We are a people of great passion and stamina, and boy, when you celebrate a time of year like Midsummer (also known as summer solstice, or in Latvian-Jani, pronounced, yah-nyi), you need the passion and the stamina! There is folk singing, with the refrain of “ligo,” which means to “sway.” This refrain is perfect, as the flowers you hold while singing, sway in tandem with your body. Oh…and the sweet wildflower aroma is an elixir that swirls through the air. There is polka dancing and wreath making for the young and old-flowers for the ladies and oak leaves for the guys.  (“Why is your dad dressed as a tree?”)  Flowers and oak wreaths are placed EVERYWHERE, around the house, even on animals.  Dress up whatever you want in flowers and oak leaves!  Bring the outdoors inside; Midsummer is all about communing with nature.” - Anita Piwowarczyk, Chicago Now

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6z3yMXKbGCk

“Okay so this is a simple one, but if you simply can’t get down to Stonehenge, or any of the above, why not get up early and see the sun rise out of your bedroom window? It may not be as spectacular, busy or as historically vital as many places, but hey – it only happens once a year and you can stroll down the road, grab a paper and eat some breakfast in privacy. Now that’s something you definitely can’t do at a freezing stone circle in the West Country. Of course knowing the weather there’s a good chance you’ll see little more than grey skies: remember, then, that the skies of Stonehenge Virtual are always crystal clear, and that it’s no more than a few clicks away.” - Sean Williams, Alternatives to Stonehenge: 10 Places to Celebrate the Summer Solstice, Heritage Key

“Midsummer is a special time in the northern hemisphere, and has been celebrated in almost every European country around the 24th of June since pre-Christian days. The festival traditionally marks the ancient middle of summer, when plant- ing time symbolically gave way to the days of harvest and hay- making. Now celebrated on or around June 21 as the astronomical beginning of summer, Midsummer celebrations in the Middle Ages embraced the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, who the Bible says was born six months before Jesus (which explains the June 24 date). But Midsummer celebrations have historically carried the hint of magic. In many countries, bonfires were lit to protect against evil spirits, believed to roam freely as the sun turned south again.” - Deb Barnes, The Citizen

“Altogether, Midsummer is a favorite holiday for many Witches in that it is so hospitable to outdoor celebrations. The warm summer night seems to invite it. And if the celebrants are not, in fact, skyclad, then you may be fairly certain that the long ritual robes of winter have yielded place to short, tunic-style apparel. As with the longer gowns, tradition dictates that one should wear nothing underneath—the next best thing to skyclad, to be sure.” - Mike Nichols, The Witches’ Sabbats

“Among Wiccans and Wiccan inspired Pagans, and some others as well, the Solstice marks the highpoint of the Wheel of the Year, the time of greatest vitality for the energy of life. And like every true high point, immediately afterwards the balance begins to shift. The Sabbats that will follow through Samhain will celebrate the shifting powers of life, harvest, decline, and death. In some traditions we see this honored through the ritual combat between the Oak King of the waxing year and the Holly King of the waning year. He brings, the Oak King down at the height of his Power., a fitting symbolic reminder that all power is temporary, all success carrying within itself the seed of its decline.” - Gus diZerega, Beliefnet

A blessed Midsummer to you all!

* Technically speaking, the 2010 Summer Solstice occurs at 11:28 UTC on June 21st. Please check your local time-zone for accurate Solstice timing.

“Not quite, maybe, but the rise has been dramatic. The census in 2001 recorded 40,000 pagans, but the true figure may be higher … The Pagan Federation, which aims to represent all “followers of a polytheistic or pantheistic nature-worshipping religion”, claims the number of adherents has trebled at least. That would mean there were 360,000 committed, practising pagans, putting them ahead of the Sikhs (329,000) and fourth behind Hindus (552,000), Muslims (1.5 million) and Christians (42 million, according to the census) … All you have to believe to be a pagan, according to the federation, is that each of us has the right to follow our own path (as long as it harms no-one else); that the higher power (or powers) exists; and that nature is to be venerated. If you asked everyone in Britain if they agreed with those three statements, millions would put their hands up. At its loosest, paganism is beginning to look like our new national faith.”

As if to validate Moreton’s thesis, the Summer Solstice gathering this year at Stonehenge was the largest ever, with an estimated 36,500 revellers making their way to Salisbury Plain.

“Despite the sun not making an appearance in an overcast sky, record numbers of people arrived to celebrate the occasion. An eccentric mix of Morris dancers, pagans dressed in their traditional robes and musicians playing guitars and drums gathered alongside visitors from across the world.”

There seems to be a certain British character that lends itself to celebrating its ancient landscape, and it affects you no matter what religion you actually adhere to. Pagan, Christian, atheist, or even Sikh.

“I think we ought to start a campaign to celebrate Midsummer in a more spectacular way. As a species we have specialised in creating tension, division and war. I am not for a moment suggesting we eschew organised religion. What I am suggesting is that we embrace our commonality. We all exist in the warmth of the sun, the light of the moon; we live by the tree and drink of the river. I suggest that we create a pantheistic precedent and have the first multi-faith celebration of the sun, of the galaxy and of the universe. I would like this event to take place in Croydon. We should, for one long day only, forget our differences and unify under the canopy of a shared sky. We will welcome the pot-smoking hippies, the groovy Bhuddists, the depression-embracing goths, the perennially troubled Christians, the ideologically-centred Sunnis and the daughters and sons of Khalsa. Food ought to be available for vegetarians, vegans, omnivores, and chocolate for the pot-heads. We should all wear differently coloured, full-length, smock-dresses that celebrate the colours of nature (no one, not even Croydon’s own Kate Moss, looks good in a smock-dress: it is a great leveller).”

So is the British soul, deep down, really a pagan soul? Or does it just seem that way around Midsummer?

Druids at Stonehenge on the Summer Solstice

Here are some recent quotes on this day from the press, along with some words from those who celebrate the Summer Solstice as a holiday.

“Druids began their incantations, Wiccan priestesses drew their cowls tight against the damp morning air and four half-naked Papuan dancers waved their hands in the air and went: “Woo, woo, woo” … A record 36,500 people had gathered at the prehistoric monument on Salisbury Plain to watch the sun rise. So many turned out to celebrate the solstice that roads had to be shut and the vast field converted into a car park for 6,500 vehicles was full by 3am.” – Simon de Bruxelles, The Times

“They may be suffering from one of the world’s worst recessions but all the economic doom and gloom will not keep Latvians from having fun at a midsummer’s night festival dating from pagan times. “It is a tradition here,” 45-year-old Nina told AFP outside a Riga supermarket. “Everyone entertains themselves as they can. Sure, we’ll cut out small things to spend less this year but the tradition will remain.” Deeply rooted in pagan customs handed down from generation to generation, the “Jani” festival is held on June 23 as the summer solstice marks northern Europe’s longest day of the year — when Latvia enjoys almost 18 hours of daylight.” – Aleks Tapinsh, AFP

For ancient pagans in Scandinavia, cracking open a Carlsberg and singing ‘We love our Land’ around a bonfire, perhaps, was a bit unforeseeable.  However, pagans did light fires to heal pain and protected their souls on midsummer’s, or as it’s presently known in Denmark, Sankt Hans Aften or Saint John’s Eve.  The dear late Sankt Hans, or Saint John the Baptist, surely never imagined that decedents of those pagans would build pyres in his honour, nor that, after the rise of nationalism, a nation fondly known as Denmark would host those pyres.  Times surely have changed since the birth of the last millennium. – The Copenhagen Post

“Steeped in ancient rituals and traditions, Latvia’s Midsummer is a celebration unique in Europe, where many of the customs have long since died out. Most Latvians leave the cities enmasse to gather around ceremonial bonfires in the countryside to welcome the arrival of summer in the company of friends and family. During this time the countryside comes alive with all-night parties in which people make fires, sing songs, dance, make and wear wreaths of flowers, drink specially-brewed beer and eat homemade cheese.” – Kate McIntosh, The Baltic Times

“There is something very refreshing about the Wiccan way, the Druid approach. They have no expectation that they can explain everything or indeed anything. Unlike the organised religions, Wicca is all about stuff we can see; the sun and the moon, the holly and the oak. Their godheads are based on a necessary reality, an existence that once yolked humankind to the earth and earth to humankind. Their belief seems to be founded on the realisation that we are animals and locked into project planet. And while the notion of “harm none, do what ye will” might seem familiar to Bible-lovers, it comes in a refreshingly dogma-free version with our Wicca sorority and brethren. Given what we appear to be doing to the planet in terms of warming it, melting it and polluting it, it might not be a bad time to start acting on that mantra.” – Hardeep Singh Kohli, The Independent

A blessed Midsummer to you all!

* Technically speaking, the 2009 Summer Solstice occurs at 05:45 UTC on June 21st. Please check your local time-zone for accurate Solstice timing.

Druids at Stonehenge on the Summer Solstice

Here are some recent quotes on this day from the press, along with some words from those who celebrate the Summer Solstice as a holiday.

“Most people know that June 21, the summer solstice, is the longest day of the year. Few people realize why marking that day was important to people in the past and why it continues to be important to those whose beliefs are tied to the Earth’s cycles … By celebrating the summer solstice (and other seasonal markers), pagans acknowledge that all people are part of the ecosystem, dependent on the Earth and the seasons.” – Christine Hennebury, The Telegram

“An exuberant gathering in Britain of 20,000 people has welcomed the first rays of dawn on the year’s longest day. It’s the summer solstice, the first day of summer. And in a modern version of an ancient sun-worshiping tradition, partygoers, pagans and druids gathered at Stonehenge. The still-mysterious collection of 3,000-year-old giant pillars rests on a plain southwest of London. New Yorker Jeanette Montesano, 23, is a self-described pagan and compares the Stonehenge trek to the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, though not nearly as big and a lot more fun. Couples snuggled on the lawn, dancers gyrated to drums and whistles and floodlights bathed the stones in pink and purple.” – The Associated Press

“For the summer solstice ritual, Henderson will wear long, deep-hued robes, lead ceremonial chants and offer praise to the sun god, Bel, and the river goddess, Danu, in a pretty corner of the Botsford Recreational Preserve in Scio Township … Ann Arbor’s 20-member druid grove, started in 1994, is part of a small, international movement to revive pagan and druid practice. The Ann Arbor congregation, called the Shining Lakes Grove, is part of a larger international druid movement spread across 58 groves in the United States, Canada and Britain. The archdruid, who heads the organization, is a guy named Skip.” – Tamara Audi, Detroit Free Press

“It’s a day celebrated in as many different ways as there are different cultures. Whether it’s marked with drumming, dancing, fires, food, festivals or just people coming together to note the occasion, it’s a chance for humans to deepen their spiritual understanding and reaffirm their connection to the natural world, said Sara Heartsong, a native Las Crucen.” – Jason Gibbs, Las Cruces Sun-News

“For many Latvians, the midsummer festival is the most important feast of the year. Based on pre-Christian traditions of sun worship, it is currently dedicated to John the Baptist (whence its alternative name of “Jani”), but its rituals are purely pagan. In the afternoon of June 23, Latvians crowned with wreaths of oak leaves flock to the countryside. In pre-Christian times the oak was regarded as a holy tree, and it still features widely in Latvian folk songs and on the five-lat (9.52 dollars) bank note. As the evening draws in, Ligo celebrants light bonfires and sing folk songs or jump through the flames. They also grill shashliks and consume copious quantities of alcohol, although these are not generally interpreted as being specifically pagan traditions.” – Earth Times

“Although our Pagan ancestors probably preferred June 24 (and indeed most European folk festivals today use this date), the sensibility of modern Witches seems to prefer the actual solstice point, beginning the celebration on its eve, or the sunset immediately preceding the solstice point. Again, it gives modern Pagans a range of dates to choose from with, hopefully, a weekend embedded in it … Altogether, Midsummer is a favorite holiday for many Witches in that it is so hospitable to outdoor celebrations. The warm summer night seems to invite it. And if the celebrants are not, in fact, skyclad, then you may be fairly certain that the long ritual robes of winter have yielded place to short, tunic-style apparel.” – Mike Nichols, A Midsummer’s Celebration

A blessed Midsummer to you all!
]]> http://www.patheos.com/blogs/wildhunt/2007/06/happy-summer-solstice-2.html/feed 0 http://www.patheos.com/blogs/wildhunt/2007/06/summer-festivals-are-coming.html http://www.patheos.com/blogs/wildhunt/2007/06/summer-festivals-are-coming.html#comments Sun, 03 Jun 2007 15:35:00 +0000 Jason Pitzl-Waters http://patheos.com/blogs/wildhunt/2007/06/summer-festivals-are-coming.html June has only just begun, but already an article on the Summer Solstice has popped up in the travel section of the OC Register.

“Summer solstice, the longest day of the year, inspired Shakespeare’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream” and is associated with the exile of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. Solstice festivals abound in the United States, from Norwegian bonfires to pagan candlelight labyrinths and American Indian drumming rituals … Known variously throughout Europe as the Feast of Epona, Gathering Day, Johannistag, Litha, Vestalia and Midsummer, the summer solstice was viewed across cultures as a period of peak fertility and a time for weddings.”

The article pays special attention to the upcoming Pagan Spirit Gathering in Wisteria, Ohio, held June 17th – 24th.

“One such festival is the Pagan Spirit Gathering in Wisteria, Ohio, held each June at a 620-acre nature preserve in the foothills. Now in its 26th year, the eight-day event is expected to draw hundreds of people from across the country and abroad to commune with nature. “Though there are variations, we start every summer with an opening ritual and follow with a potluck festival, workshops and a parade with torches and candles,” said Selena Fox, senior minister of the Circle Sanctuary, a pagan spiritual group that hosts the event. “It is a very diverse celebration, combining Druid, Wiccan, Native American, Celtic, Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Baltic and Swedish traditions.” Ancient customs that honor the sun meld with modern feminism as festival-goers offer herbs and flowers to the sun, a symbol of what Fox calls “the divine feminine,” and stroll through a labyrinth created by 1,000 candles forming a pattern from pagan Crete.”

But while I appreciate the attention given to Pagan holidays (and the connected festivals), I do have to quibble with a statement the writer makes about Pagan summer observances.

“For many new age religions, the summer solstice is like Christmas, Hanukkah and Easter rolled into one.”

I mean, come on! Hasn’t she ever heard of Samhain?
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