In Celebration Of Summer Solstice

In Celebration Of Summer Solstice

Today is the Summer Solstice! It is the longest day of the year and it’s all about expressing gratitude for the gifts of harvest, bounty and abundance that is being given us in the next six months. It is a time to celebrate what makes life so wonderful and all the opportunities that nature gives to experience that.

The Druids, ancient Egyptians, Mayans, Romans and many others cultures aligned their sacred sites to the summer Solstice and always conducted ceremonies on that day and still do. It’s a wonderful opportunity to enjoy being outside, communing with nature, and incorporating your awareness of the connection between wealth, health, and natural living.

You don’t have to practice Wicca, be a Shaman, a Druid priestess or an elemental Goddess to show your reverence to the blossoming of new life to our planet on which we reside. Celebrating the Summer Solstice is about welcoming more love, light and joy into your life.

At this time of the year, the sun is the farthest north that it ever gets over the equator. Symbolically, the Summer Solstice represents enlightenment, awakening, and the triumph of lightness over darkness.

During Summer Solstice, it’s a time to celebrate forward movement – advancing further into light – and remembering and honoring the essential light within yourself. There are so many joyous rituals out there to honor the first day of Summer Solstice, June 21st in the Northern Hemisphere, it was hard to pick out which ones would have the happiest energies. Here are a few recommendations made by, YES, the Wiccans, practicing Druids and the Elemental Goddesses out there! Enjoy!

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1. When you first wake up, before you even put your feet on the floor, visualize the healing light of Gaia (Mother Earth) filling you with light and joy. Tune into all that you have to be grateful for while you visualize that beautiful light energy encompassing you and everything around you.
2. Sometime during the day or evening, find a quiet time, light a candle and then gaze at it for a few minutes. Then close your eyes and allow the light to stay with you in your mind’s eye, giving thanks for everything you have to be in gratitude for.
3. Go outside in your bare feet and walk on the grass, feeling your energy grounding to the core of Mother Earth in a column of light. Imagine all that no longer serves you traveling down this column, releasing all negativity into the light to the core of Mother Earth.
4. Hug a tree! NO, don’t laugh! You will be amazed at the earth energy you will feel if you just allow yourself for a few minutes, to wrap your arms around a tree and thank it for being there for you. Remember that without trees, you have no air to breath!
5. Burn a white sage smudge stick or loose sage, giving thanks for all that you have to be in gratitude of to the four cardinal directions- north, south, east, and west. Honoring the sun, the moon, the flowers, the trees, the wind and everything that is now getting ready to bloom in your life.
6. Expand your desired intentions by choosing a quiet place with arms outstretched, looking up to the sky and thinking about what specific areas you would like to make more of in your daily life: relationships, happiness, experiencing greater love and abundance, manifesting new opportunities or whatever is important for you during the next six months.
7. A Solstice fire ceremony is a wonderful way to honor and celebrate the light as humanity has done for centuries. On a piece of paper, write down the things you have accomplished during the last six months. Take a minute to read what you’ve written out loud before burning the paper in celebration and gratitude. Letting go of any attachment to the past and paving the way for new opportunities, manifestations and accomplishments in the future.
8. Create a Solstice altar that every time you look at it, it makes you feel joyous and hopeful of the abundance coming in the next six months for you. Create it by a window so the light shines in on it. Put on the altar everything that remind you of the sun, of your spirituality, connecting with the Divine and more fully with yourself.

(READ: The Power of Breath)

Susan Z

Susan Z Rich is an emotional addiction counselor, spiritual intuitive and holistic therapist. She counsels others to see life in a more positive way and teaches personal accountability for life choices. She is also the author of several children’s books and Soul Windows…Secrets From The Divine.