Man do I love the summer solstice. It’s right around this time of year I realise how wonderful and green everything is and think, it can’t possibly have been this beautiful last year because I would have remembered, right?
Let’s get a heads up on the Solstice, shall we, lest we find ourselves unprepared at the last minute! I’m keeping it simple, as I want to suggest things that are really easy to fit into your life.
For some, the Solstice is a festival of Fire – for me, following the Wheel of BrigitAna, it’s a festival of water. It’s such a luscious time of year, like a ripe water melon – glistening, bright and tasty, om nom nom – and lusciousness makes me think of water, not burning, scorching fire. I live in England, so guess which one I get more of?
So I got water specific, and came up with some awesome ideas of how to honour the Goddesses of Water and celebrate the season of Water:
- Go swimming. Better yet, go swimming outside. Bring goggles too, and submerge yourself in the water, and have a look at what’s going on in the Otherworld of water.
- Go on a mini pilgrimage to a stream or a river. I don’t mean a miles-long, six week pilgrimage. I mean a half hour trip. Look up your nearest body of water on a map, a river, stream, local pond, fountain, whatever, and make your way there with honour and reverence. I feel it’s better to pick something you can walk to. Start your journey with a prayer, and use a meditative chant while walking – my favourite is “Maiden, Lover, Mother, Crone, Lady of Avalon, bring me home”. Go slow – watch the trees, smell the flowers, relish the rain. When you get to your destination, spend a while in meditation and prayer, and leave an offering to the Mother of Water.
- Cleanse your body with water – take a bath with sea salt and lavender, and imagine it cleansing and purifying your whole body, mind and soul, filling you with a white light. I also like to sing in the bath to honour and call in the goddess in a mermaidenly fashion. Only when no-one else is in the house though 😀
- You can extend the cleansing-with-water gig to cleansing-other-stuff-with-water – your altar, tools, make a special floorwash to clean your floors with.
- Do a watering the plants ritual. If you have a garden, or little house plants, make a ritual out of watering the plants – empower the water, spend a little amount of time really being with and experiencing each plant.
A heads up on whom I consider to be Goddesses of Litha/Summer Solstice/Water:
- The Faery Queen Mab
- The Irish Faery Queen Aine
- The Lady of the Lake
- Domnu, Lady of the Oceans
- Sulis, who is handily a lady of both water and sunshine
- Mermaids, and the Mermaid Goddesses – Jurate, Atargatis, Yemaya, Nyai Loro Kidul, Liban
- Coventina
- The Great Goddess – more than the other festivals, the Solstice always feels like a festival of the Goddess, rather than particular goddesses.
Next week, we’ll be getting Witchy with the season!
Loads of great ideas!!