Summer Solstice blessings to you! Also known as midsummer’s eve, this solstice marks the longest day and thus shortest night of the year, when the tilt of the Earth’s axis is most inclined towards the Sun, our source of light. It is a time of passion, bounty and life.

Let the ideas below inspire your own personal rituals for greeting summer.

Celebration Suggestions

1. Honor the Sun
Susan Gray recommends the following daily centering:

• Reach your arms up toward the sun: “You who are the source of all power.”
• Sweep your arms down as you turn toward the earth: “Whose rays illuminate the whole earth.”
• Place your hands over your heart: “Illuminate also my heart,”
• Open your arms at shoulder height as you turn and look around you: “That it too may do your work.”

If you practice yoga, combine meditation and physical movement with the Salute to the Sun. This sequence of postures will balance your body and soul in harmony.

2. Seek Fulfillment
The summer solstice heralds the beginning of summer, the time of fulfillment, and is therefore an excellent time to take stock of your life and assess your goals and intentions. Ask yourself: “Am I still aligned with my goals or have I strayed from them?” Take this opportunity to reinvigorate them and to make any necessary changes to achieve your aims in life. Set aside those goals that aren’t taking you in the direction you want to go now. We all grow and change over time; make sure you’re not hanging onto goals that no longer fit the person you have become.

3. Get Outside
Enjoy being outdoors in the sun and find ways to connect with nature. Take a walk or sit outside and read a book. The stability of summer and the promise of balmy, warmer days ahead can be a time to develop yourself, to set yourself free and to nurture yourself. This season of ripening crops is an ideal time for self-maturation and for consolidation of your energies.

4. Focus on Healing
In medieval times, people believed that herbs and flowers picked during the summer solstice carried healing energy above and beyond any normal healing properties. Honor this connection by growing your own herbs during summer, and learn more about using plants to heal minor injuries and illnesses. While growing your herbs and veggies, remember to thank the pollinators, especially the bees. Consider learning a healing technique, such as reiki, massage or acupressure.

5. Throw a Fireside Party
Gather with others around a bonfire or a fire pit. Fires have always been a source of protection for humans, scaring off the beings of the night, both real and magical, and they are a summer solstice tradition. In modern times, a bonfire can serve as a great reason to hold a summer solstice party with friends.

Summer is Icumen In

Summer has come in
Loudly sing, cuckoo!
Seeds grow and meadows bloom
and the woods spring anew
Sing cuckoo!
Ewe bleats after lamb,
Calf lows after cow,
Bullock leaps, billygoat farts,
Merrily sing, cuckoo!
Cuckoo, cuckoo!
Well you sing cuckoo,
Nor cease you ever now!
Sing cuckoo now, Sing, cuckoo!